The other day while I was about to be tabling at Downer, I noticed that on the couches and chairs in the lobby were perched not several people, but instead various winter apparel. I then glanced over at the coat rack and noticed it was half empty (then made note to myself that I am not usually so pessimistic). I was furious. It seems that if I were to relax while I waited for my friend I had but one choice: hang myself on the coat rack.
This seemed like a rather unfair situation; I wasn’t sure that I would get much reading done while hanging from the coat rack.
I glanced menacingly at the coats sitting on the couches and chairs and then I took a deep breath and saw my friend approaching the building. The issue was dead–for the moment.
Having regained some composure upon talking to my dining companion, I went back to my room to investigate the matter. I figured that I was mistaken and maybe chairs, couches, and other such furniture were really just places for people to put coats.
I looked up “chair” in a dictionary; it said that it was “a piece of furniture consisting of a seat, legs, back, and often arms, designed to accommodate one person.”
I then proceeded to look up “couch” and read that a couch is “an upholstered seat for more than one person.”
I thought to myself then, “Are coats and other pieces of winter apparel people?” I looked up “people” in the dictionary; apparently, they are “living humans.” This led me to look up “living,” which means “possessing life.”
So looked up “life” and I found that it is “the property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.”
I had my answer. The coats were so numerous that they must have been reproducing, thus they were alive.
This conclusion was backed up by the fact that they must be alive or else they wouldn’t be sitting on a couch, since couches are seats “for more than one person.” I no longer felt bad that a coat was taking my space; it had as much right to be there as I did.
I went back to Downer and realized that these living coats did not deserve capital punishment. Since then, needless to say I have not been hanging my coat; it is a living thing.
That being said, I plead with you to refrain from hanging your coat on the rack, murderer.