Adventures in getting old: Probably not a flerken

This what getting old is like.

I bought myself a new office chair a while back because the old one had become totally worn out. Bought it from Office Outlet, which used to be Staples and which will be vanishing sometime in the near future, and assembled it at home.

All went well until a few weeks ago when the back went a bit wonky. I wondered why but found no obvious solution.

At the start of this week I found a threaded bolt on the floor and worked out that it had fallen from the back of the chair, identified where it had come loose from and carefully placed it on the desk with the resolve to get the tool box out and screw it back into place.

I get home from the gym later that day and look on the desk. No bolt. Not to worry, the desk’s a bit cluttered: I’ll clean it up and have a proper search later.

Two ruddy days of clearing crap off the desk, searching on the floor under the desk, asking Monty if he is a flerken who has swallowed the thing. Monty will neither confirm nor deny. No sign of the ruddy thing.

Then it turns up on the table. Not the desk. The table I have also poured over half a dozen times. If Monty isn’t a flerken then am I either haunted or so absent minded and unobservant that I can miss such a ruddy obvious thing.

Still I got out the tool box.

And then I noticed it didn’t have a screw head but a hexagonal head.

And though I would have sworn I had kept it I don’t seem to have the hex key that came with the chair.

The bolt is back in place but not terribly secure. Maybe next time I’ll do what I keep swearing I’ll do and buy one of the really expensive executive chairs. Life’s too short to be vulnerable to the whims of flerkens.