Eames

I coveted last Saturday night. Lisa and I went to the Christian Learning Center auction at Calvin Christian Middle School, an event that I used to open up the school for back when it was at Seymour and I was a janitor there. We got a couple of kid-sized wooden lounge chairs, and I snagged a $25 Lowe's card for $20, but, to my mild disappointment, we didn't take home the most prized item of the night - a Herman Miller Eames Lounge and Ottoman.

Grandpa Ribbens used to have just such a chair, and I recall quite fondly sitting in it at their house on Lake Michigan. I remember that all the air in the cushion would woosh out when you sat on the ottoman. Then, Saturday night, among all the other items on stage, there sat a sparkling new Eames Chair. I looked it up on the evening's program and first mistook a different chair - item #21 - for the Eames. The supposed retail value of item #21 was $800. I mildly entertained myself with thoughts of bidding on it. However, when #21 came up, they rolled out a nice office chair, not the Eames. Going back to the list, I found the Eames, #73, with a retail value of ... $3995. It would have been incredibly irresponsible of me to bid on it, but Lisa said I could go for it. I set a limit around $700-$800 for myself, but when bidding started, the auctioneer went down to $500 to get the first bid, and in 15 seconds the bid jumped to $1000, so I never had a chance. A few minutes later, a half-nerdy guy and his wife in their 40s quietly stood there looking wealthy, made it suspenseful, and got my prize for $2300. Oh well. Maybe someday (or not).