The Big Ass Chair Company Inc.

Now here's an idea I've been sitting on a good 15-20 years.

Everybody has been to a backyard get together at one time or another, when one of the larger friends or family members has had the unfortunate experience of ripping the ass out of some piece-of-shit made-in-China patio furniture.

Happened to my brother-in-law at the family reunion just this past August. Gets up to fetch his fourth plate of appetizers, sits down, and snap! He's sitting flat on the deck with his ass ensnared in one of those flimsy folding Walmart lawnchairs.

You know what happens then. There's a moment of awkward silence, followed by enquiries as to his well-being, followed by, depending on how the victim is reacting to circumstances, either raucous laughter or a quick change of subject.

Here's the idea; a line of patio furniture that's guaranteed to handle the biggest of backsides without exposing folks to the humiliation and indignity of one of these chair episodes.

The Big Ass Chair Company.

Truth be told, I've already made a couple of proto-types. About twenty years ago there was a gal working in the front office of the shop asked if I could maybe undertake a side project for the benefit of her son. Seems he'd had the same problem, and she was worried that he was going to develop a phobia about sitting down at family picnics.

I was too polite to bring it up, but I'd met the son, and I knew that although he was a big lad Mama had a good fifty pounds on him. She really needed these chairs for herself.

I was able to accommodate her, and she had a couple of great looking patio chairs a couple weeks later. 3/4 solid round bar for the frame, solid 1/2 inch bar for the cross members. Made it a little wider than what you'd find in a store, for obvious reasons. I was able to book both the time and material to one of the big jobs in the shop at the time, so it was a win-win all round.

As a side benefit, these babies come in at around seventy-five pounds each. They'll stay put right there on your deck in anything less than a Cat five hurricane.

Then I got to thinking. There's got a be a huge market for stuff like this, and if even a fraction of the scary stories you read about obesity are true, that market has grown like topsy over the last twenty years.

It's also one of those beautiful products that has appeal across all kinds of religious and ethnic barriers. A chair fail is every bit as likely to smite an Indo-Canadian family in Mississauga as an Afro-American family in Mississippi.

Like I said, it's an idea I've had on the back burner for a long time, but with the turning of a new year, I find myself pumped to make something happen.

2012, year of the Big Ass Chair.