It’s just a restless feeling by my side

Just a typical Sunday hereabouts, one part New York Times crossword, one part writing group.

On my way home from writing, I picked up a kneeling chair I’d bought at the beginning of July, when my back was starting to hurt me more than usual. I have a friend with several herniated discs who swears by the chairs, but I’ve never used one. And finding one that seemed to be both high-quality and affordably priced wasn’t easy.

I ordered this chair online through Staples, to be delivered to my local store where I could pick it up. They estimated delivery around July 30th. Online, though, their website just said that it was shipping, and then earlier last week that it had shipped. I couldn’t get any more information. More often than not, their “track this shipment” option just returned a blank page. So I contacted customer service by e-mail. They said that the chair had shipped and had been delivered to the store on July 16. Meanwhile, this is now almost three weeks later. No e-mail, no call, nothing. The one time I was able to get any information out of the website, the tracking number was all but useless. The box was shipped by UPS, but that’s not what the website said. How I was supposed to know the box had arrived is beyond me. I guess they didn’t care, since I’d already paid for it.

Picking it up wasn’t much of a hassle. I just had to show ID, and then wait while they failed to find a record of it in their system — or at least the record that would let them print out some form I had to sign. Probably, the woman behind the counter told me, because it had been sitting around their store for several weeks and was no longer in their system.

I haven’t set up the chair yet — in fact, the box is still sitting in the trunk of my car — but I’m curious. In the time since I bought it, my back seems to have adjusted, and the pain it gives me has again become very manageable. But if the chair can help improve it, that’s all for the good.