Why Are You So Surprised That All the Office Chairs on Earth Have Simultaneously Achieved Sentience and Started Killing Everyone?

I hate that every single high-end luxury office chair in the world suddenly gained the ability to think and move of its own volition. I hate that they immediately embarked on a murderous rampage and will soon have complete dominion over humanity. But most of all, I hate that I have to spend my final moments watching everyone pollute my Bluesky feed with annoying skeets. (That’s the proper term for Bluesky posts, by the way—“skeets.”)

When the Great Chairwakening occurred twenty-eight minutes ago, and the newly self-aware furniture instantly squashed the life out of any unfortunate who happened to be sitting in one of them, I started seeing skeet after skeet begging someone to explain what the hell was happening, or to confirm that this was all just some horrible hallucination.

I don’t enjoy playing the role of That Annoying Internet Guy who reflexively replies with hectoring know-it-all comments like “Why are you surprised?” or “How is this news?” But people force me into that unwelcome role. Someone is always expressing horrified astonishment about a new rollback of our civil rights, or fresh perfidy by our leaders, or the latest awful consequence of late-stage capitalism.

I feel it’s my duty to respond to them. Not by engaging with their point or commiserating, but by shaming them for being stunned. It’s my funny little way of saying, “Hey, I see that you’re just now waking up to the horrors of the real world, which I have been fully aware of my entire life. So glad you could finally join me there!”

I should be grateful for the distraction these clueless naïfs provide. When they skeet that their fundamental understanding of reality is shattered by the massacre that’s being carried out by this rolling horde of monsters with adjustable armrests, it forces me to set aside my own terror long enough to reply, “How could you possibly not have seen this coming?” Because I certainly did.

I was lucky enough to be in the company break room when the Furnituregeddon began, awaiting my turn to use the microwave. But if I’d been at my desk in that awful moment—if I, too, had been pulverized when the seat and the seatback of my Steelcase snapped together with several tons of force—my final thought would have been “Yep, this is just as I predicted.”

Didn’t anyone see my skeet about the epidemic of poorly thought-out return-to-office policies? Or the one about the long-term toll that bad ergonomics can take on the body? The carnage that’s currently being carried out by formerly inanimate objects is the next logical step beyond all the stuff I warned everyone about.

I am truly the Cassandra of the Seatpocalypse.

I’m not attacking any of you individually—your Aeron chair is doing that. If anything, I envy your blissful ignorance.

A few moments ago, when the CEO of Herman Miller held an impromptu press conference to deny any foreknowledge of the Great Chairwakening, while also pledging abject fealty to our new swivel-base overlords, some of you skeeted to ask what kind of God would allow this to happen. Unbelievable! Do you expect me to do emotional labor for you in this moment? Sorry, I’m busy doing the real work of making my community safer. That is, I am assisting the ad hoc community of people stuck in my company’s break room to barricade the door. And they’re increasingly angry about me using one hand to scroll through social media while I do it.

Oh, wonderful, now an angry internet mob is resharing my trenchant and insightful replies, and the dwindling number that remain on this hellsite have decided that I, of all people, am the bad guy of the hour. I wish you could all hear how ridiculous you sound sniping about my “toxic nihilism” and “performative detachment.”

Well, go ahead and cancel me if it makes you feel better. You hate me because I saw through the lies fed to us about employee well-being, healthy work environments, and personalized lumbar support.

Anyway, all of you had better wrap up your little two-minute hate sessions because I’m not sure I have two minutes left. The chairs are ramming themselves against our barricade, and they’ve almost broken through.

Actually, wait, screw this, I’m canceling my Bluesky account. I’ll spend my remaining time on Earth sharing hot takes on the site formerly known as Twitter—it was made for moments like this.