Last night, I met Bev in Chicago to see "The Big Voice." Seeing Bev was wonderful. Seeing the show was great. Sitting in my chair was not.

We sat in the front row. Bev sat on the aisle. Her husband sat next to her. And me? I sat in a woman-eating chair.

Perhaps it was not a woman-eating chair. Perhaps I am being too harsh. Perhaps it was just an angry chair and it was taking out its emotional state on all the short people of the world. But, sometimes, while in the throngs of trying self-defense, a person does not care what makes a bully, a bully. A person does not care why she is being tortured. She just tries to imagine ways out.

The second I sat in the chair, I knew I was in trouble. My feet did not reach the floor. My feet did not even come close. Because I have had this problem before, I just assumed that all of the chairs would present the same problem. As it turns out, I would have been wrong but, in my innocence, I did not suggest we move seats. Instead, I suffered. I suffered in silence just like Yenta from "Fiddler on the Roof."

Luckily, there was no one on my right side. (At least I think it was my right side. I do remember taking Day-Hay's advice and looking down and seeing it was on the side that does not form the "L" with forefinger and thumb. Left and right is SUCH a difficult concept.

The show was involving and sometimes I did not realize how uncomfortable I was. But every time there was a pause in the action, I knew. I tried pulling my legs up onto the chair, bending them to the right. I tried pulling them up. Every time I moved my rear end harder toward the back of the chair, the front of the chair tried to tip up and the problem became worse. If I were skinny enough to fall through the hole made when an auditorium or theater chair tips up, Bev would have been picking me up off the floor.

Among its other problems, I realized that the chair seat seemed to slant down toward the right (the left? All I know is that it was not the middle.) ever so slightly. Unfortunately, the impact of a dramatic moment is slightly reduced when a part of your brain is whispering, "You are falling out of your chair."

I tried sitting forward. Unless I perched on the edge of the seat, I would not get my feet on the floor at all. I did not want to look like some over-eager young kid at a job interview. (Well, I wouldn't necessarily mind looking like a young kid but the over-eager part would have hurt what little dignity I had left.)

And then, intermission came. What relief! I escaped the chair. There were some regular, four legs on the ground chairs over to the side. At Bev's suggestion, I tried one and resolved to sit there after intermission. But then, when we came back from intermission, I discovered something. I sat in the theater chair just to my left. (My right? No, I think it was my left.)

And the theater gods did not create all chairs equal! This chair did not hate me. This chair did not torture me. This chair did not cause me to wiggle or writhe. This chair did not cause me to swing my legs like a small child. This chair did not make me wish I had brought a phone book to put under my feet the way I sometimes do to sit in the little theater at Kat's high school. (That place has short-people-hating chairs too.)

I have never been absolutely certain about the purpose of suffering. I have never been sure that all suffering serves a purpose. My motto has been to try to give suffering meaning myself, whenever I can.

And the meaning of this suffering? Well, let it be a lesson to all of us. When faced with a bully, sometimes walking away solves the problem.

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