I could bend myself into many different TV viewing positions when I was a kid, on my back, my sides, my stomach, on any piece of furniture, including end tables and the coffee table, on top and underneath. I spent a lot of time on the floor, my head propped on my hand, and my elbow pressed into the carpet and a great deal of time on the couch. Only once back then did I worry about my positional habits. For a while there I began to believe that lying on my stomach on the couch with my chin up on the cushioned arm was causing my chin to flatten and grow pointed. I have no idea why I thought that unless it had to do with a very startling episode of The Outer Limits. Whether or not my face would look different had I not spent so many nights in that position, I don’t care to ponder. But other than that, I enjoyed complete freedom of position.
And that was true for many years as an adult. I watched TV on the floor with my kids, and even spent many an hour with my head resting on one arm of a loveseat, and my legs hanging over the other. No problem. Then one year when I was fresh into my 600s (months), I discovered that no matter what position I tried something always fell asleep, an arm, a leg, sometimes part of my back, and now and then somewhere deep, like inside a lung. I’ve never figured out which blood vessel I pinched for that. Worst of all was when from my butt to my belly button went numb, which I must admit was an interesting feeling, but oh those pins and needles afterward! And then came the different stress aches, in knees and hips and shoulders and neck from maintaining a single position for a long time.
For a while, I had a nearly perfect chair, a big blue one my parents gave me, in which I could actually fall asleep and sleep for hours. It was an expensive chair, with a high padding-to-frame ratio, but it was old when I got it, and while I repaired it a couple of times, finally the wood within fully failed and I had to get rid of it. The next recliner I got I call the Bone Bruiser because its ratio is high on wood.
As far as I’m concerned, no one has really given much thought to constructing the perfect piece of viewing furniture. Gaming chairs are for the young, and according to my grandsons, who are in their mid-teens, they are not well designed. There should be something along the lines of a chair-like version of one of those hospital beds that have little bladders of air that ripple to keep blood flowing in a patient and can even turn you completely over from back to front. Well, that wouldn’t be good for watching TV, but there could be a setting that gently rocks you now and then with occasional rippling. (I’m sure those beds can do that, but I’m not putting one in my living room.)
But I still must sit in chairs and lounge on the sofa when I’m wasting my mind on cable. I don’t dare get on the floor anymore. Hey, water chairs! Do they make those? I hated my water bed back in the late 80s and got rid of it after less than a year, but perhaps a chair with many small pillows of H2O would work for viewing, with heating and vibrating by remote.
Well, until such a thing is available, what else am I supposed to do, stand? Hey, water shoes! I can stand for hours on my own, though my feet will eventually start hurting. So, rippling water shoes for the avid viewer! And how about massaging socks! A bionic weave of micro-gears and pulleys, like metal muscles, that gently knead your souls and toes and ripple around your ankles! And naturally, you can control them with a Sock App on your phone. Yeah, someone should invent that!
