the chair

 Senior year in high school I had a girlfriend, Marge. We talked about this and that and one day she started complaining about how her new apartment lacked a decent chair. She had been living in a nice house in northern Bergen County but now, after her parent's divorce, she had to move to a garden apartment in Hackensack. One thing she missed was having a decent armchair.

I was walking home from school and I spied a nice old-fashioned chair lying at the curb for refuse. I jumped to the occasion and brought the chair to Marge's garden apartment. Marge was thankful and said "I'm sure Mom will love this chair!

An hour passed and I was home doing my homework to the sound of Dan Ingram. For some reason my father was mowing the front lawn. A late model Chevrolet Nova drove in front of the house. It stopped and Marge got of the car, went to the trunk and struggled to pull the chair out. 

The next second, a comely lady got out of the car and my father rested the lawnmower. He looked surprised. They had a chat. Mother yelled, "Mr. Mustache you better get down here!". I ran to the curb just as Marge scurried to the passenger side of the car and it was off. Mother said I shouldn't give people trash from the street. 

After that my father teased my mother. "That Mrs. Golbfarb is a nice-looking woman", he'd say at dinner. 

"You better keep away from Mrs. Goldfarb" my mother would retort.

As I recount this story in my dotage, it occurs to me that Mrs. Goldfarb could have thrown that chair in her apartment bin. She didn't have to come to our house. She wanted to check out the family of that new boy.💁