We Go Back A Long Way

I loved my recliner, we go back a long way. It was one of those with the handset, electronically controlled that you kept in a pouch at the side of the chair. Always easy to reach and with a simple flick of a button, you were soon stretching out and more often than not, away with the fairies. I would often sit with my laptop on my, err, lap and I could see the T.V. on the wall opposite.

Home Comforts

It really was a home comfort and no matter how bad the day had been, once I was in that recliner, life quite literally became a dream. My mother had bought it for herself as a treat in her old age, but sadly, she didn’t get a lot of use from it before she passed on and it was left to me. At first, I wasn’t sure about having it, but one sit in it and a press of the ‘easy to reach buttons and I was sold. I’m sure my mother would have been pleased her little soldier was happy with it.

Batteries?

One thing that always puzzled me was that the remote control had space for batteries. The chair was powered by plugging it into the mains electricity, so why on earth would you need batteries? However, like most of these puzzles, I always find out when it’s too late. The batteries are required in case of a power cut or outage. If you’re fully stretched out, like I always was and the power goes off, the batteries in the handset will at least get you back to the sitting position so you can get out of the thing!

All Aboard

By now, I’m pretty sure you can guess what happened next. Yep, fully reclined, laptop on my lap, headphones on fully chilled out and bang!!! Total darkness and total silence. The power had gone. The first and most obvious thing I did as a natural reaction was to reach for the handset. Of course, it didn’t do a thing. It was at this point I realised why the handset had space for batteries. I could not do a thing, I was well and truly stuck for the duration of the power outage.

Stuck

You know how it is when everything suddenly goes dark, you cannot see a thing and panic sets in and being a big scaredy-cat like me, all sorts of things start running through your mind. One thing for sure, I wasn’t going anywhere. The arms were too high to climb over the edge and anyway, it would have probably tipped the whole thing on top of me. No, there was nothing I could do. Fortunately, because I was in such a good position it didn’t take long before I was fast asleep. The power must have been off for about 90 minutes. The first thing I did when it came back on apart from releasing myself, was to put batteries in the handset.

If you’re fortunate to have a recliner/lazy boy chair, here are some tips on using it.