Oh my Lawn Chair

Matt and I were at Ikea yesterday to try and get ideas about how to organize our new closet. This has now devolved into diagrams on graph paper with color-coded scaled-down squares that represent the different sized units. I still have no clue how it’s going to work, despite all of Matt’s patience and diagrams. I’ll excitedly suggest a way that I think will work great and Matt will calmly respond, "Tiffany, if we set up the wardrobes like that, you won’t be able to open the closet door to get to your clothing." Or "Yes, the wardrobes would fit facing each other like that, but will we fit between the wardrobes to get our clothing out?"

But I digress, the thing I wanted to write about was the little boy who was skipping through the store ahead of us, singing cheerily to himself and ignoring the taunts and pokes of his bored older brother.

"Oh my lawn chair, Oh my lawn chair," he was crooning to the tune of "Clementine." I kept trying to hear the next line of the song, but Ikea has so many twists and turns that I couldn’t get close enough and his mother started to give me the wary eyeball.

Since I didn’t feel like explaining I wasn’t a creepy child stalker, I just wanted to hear what made-up lyrics he was singing, I let some distance grow and actually gave Matt and the closets some long-overdue attention. But after answering a few of my closet questions, he was practically begging me to find a new child to stalk.

"I’m not stalking! I’m writing," I explained indignantly.

"Okay," he responded in a clearly placating, go-away-and-leave-me-to-my-tape-measuring voice.

That was a mistake! Now he was going to get a full explanation and I was going to make him take me seriously, or at least be annoying enough that he would listen. "No really! I’m pre-writing. I’m gathering stolen conversation. Maybe that little boy’s song will make it into a story someday, either way it’s adorable and I’m intrigued. Aren’t you?"

"Not really. I just want to look at these wardrobes and get home. If you want to go steal conversations, that’s fine. You can tell me all about it in the car. Okay?"

"Fine," I grumbled. "But since I didn’t get to hear the rest of ‘Oh my lawn chair,’ you’d better be ready to help me think up some good lyrics."

Here they are:

Oh my lawn chair
Oh my lawn chair
Oh my chair that’s on the grass
You are cozy, and so shady, I want lemonade in my glass.

It’s clearly a work in progress. And now I’ll always have to wonder what the ‘real’ fake lyrics were. sigh

So, if you ever see me following you a little too closely in a store, or leaning in a suspicious manner toward your table at a restaurant, try not to be alarmed. I’m not stalking, or eavesdropping, I’m simply stealing your conversation. And if you know the rest of the words to "Oh My Lawn Chair," feel free to take that opportunity to sing them for me.