There was a time in our house when chairs disappeared one after the other like they had signed an agreement to retire early, one got weak and cracked, another lost one leg, another somehow became everybody's favorite until it finally gave up, Before we knew it, we were left with just one plastic chair.
That chair wasn't just a chair anymore, it became a family treasure, Everybody knew that if anything happened to it, we would all suffer.
"Abeg, no drag am o," my mum would always say whenever anyone tried pulling it across the floor.
My dad wasn't any different.
"If this chair spoil, na una go stand dey chop food," he would joke.
We would laugh, but somehow everybody knew he wasn't entirely joking.
The funny thing was that the chair survived everything, visitors sat on it.
Children climbed it,it carried loads it probably wasn't designed to carry, Yet, it refused to break, that was why none of us expected the end to come the way it did.
One Saturday afternoon, my elder sister, Glory, decided she wanted to make her hair.
"Uddy, come and help me plait this hair," she called.
My younger sister walked into the sitting room.
"I don come."
The only available seat, of course, was the famous plastic chair, Glory sat down comfortably.
Uddy stood behind her, arranging the attachment and comb.
"Don't pull my hair too much o," Glory warned.
"You never even start and you're already complaining," Uddy replied.
I was somewhere around the house, listening to their usual back and forth.
It wasn't even serious, that was how they normally talked to each other.
A few minutes later...
"Ahn ah! Gentle na!" Glory shouted.
"I'm being gentle!"
"You call this gentle?"
"If you know better, make your own hair."
Both of them laughed.
Everything seemed perfectly normal.
Then something happened, Glory leaned back a little, Maybe she was trying to adjust her sitting position, Maybe she was tired.
Till today, I honestly don't know, All I remember was hearing one strange sound.
"Krrrrrrk..."
Everybody froze.
"What was that?" I asked from the other room.
"I don't know," Uddy answered.
Before anyone could say another word... "KRAAAK!"
The chair gave way completely, Glory landed on the floor.
Uddy almost followed her because she had been balancing while making the hair, For about three seconds...
Complete silence, Then I burst into laughter, The kind of laughter you try to hold back but simply can't.
Glory looked at the broken chair.
"Oh no..."
Uddy covered her mouth, "We don finish."
Immediately, everybody rushed into the sitting room, My mum looked from Glory to the chair.
Then back to Glory.
"Our chair?"
Nobody answered.
"My only surviving chair?"
Still... Nobody spoke.
Glory finally raised her hand slowly.
"Mummy..."
"It wasn't intentional."
Uddy quickly joined, "It just bent."
My mum folded her arms, "It bent?"
She looked at the broken pieces on the floor, "This one no bend, E don retire."
Even my dad, who had been outside, walked in after hearing the noise.
"What happened?"
Nobody wanted to explain, He simply looked down and saw the broken chair.
He sighed dramatically.
"So this is how the legend ended."
That statement alone made everybody laugh.
Even my mum couldn't hold her laughter anymore, The tension disappeared immediately.
Instead of scolding anyone, my dad picked up one half of the chair.
"This chair tried."
My mum nodded.
"It served this family well."
Looking back now, I don't even think the chair broke because of anyone's weight, That chair had simply reached the end of its journey, It had survived years of daily use, countless visitors, children climbing on it, people standing on it to reach high places, and everything else we put it through.
That afternoon just happened to be the day it finally decided it had done enough, For weeks afterwards, nobody stopped talking about it.
Anytime someone mentioned buying new chairs, somebody would laugh and say, "Make sure this one no meet Glory and Uddy."
Even today, now, whenever the story comes up during family conversations, everyone laughs as if it happened yesterday, the funny thing is that we do not even remember all the expensive things we had in the house back then, but somehow, everybody remembers that one plastic chair, don't know maybe because it was the last one standing, or maybe that because the way it finally broke turned an ordinary afternoon into one of those family memories that never grow old.
Sometimes, it is not the expensive things that leave the biggest memories, sometimes, it is just one old plastic chair that refused to give up until it finally did.
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