Did you know that office chairs are rated for a safe load? I was just at the store, and saw that they had one that claimed to be safe for a mere two hundred pounds. For a child, perhaps? I had been in engineering school long enough to know it was time to ask some serious questions.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Dynamic load? What's that?" asked the confused and humbled IKEA Brand Representative as she fumbled futilely for the belt-mounted Customer Service® pepper spray that I had already removed and pocketed while asking for directions.
Senseless. These folks are not in control of their own lives. For answers, I would have to go to the top, rattle some cages. Soon, I was jetting off to Munich for a meeting with the European Commission For The Rights of the Human Butthole. This would be a rare visit for a commoner, they told me. Very few have ever seen a true office-chair crash test.
Friends, have you ever seen a robot ass? I don't mean one attached to one of those horny-on-main Hajime Sorayama chrome ladies. I mean an industrial-strength seat integrity tester. They make these things in Ehime, coincidentally quite close to where Sorayama-san works. An entire factory dedicated to simulating the dynamic and static loads of the human ass, for the purpose of improving survival in common, everyday, office-chair explosions.
Explosions, you ask? Yes indeed. All of these suckers are loaded with a compressed gas cylinder, like the shock absorbers inside your car's suspension. One of these babies goes off, it's going to be a bad scene for you, the attending paramedic, any witnesses, and of course your butthole. That's why we were here, watching a test, figuring out how they get that mysterious "weight rating" that started me on this journey at the IKEA so many years ago.
There is a loud thump, which I feel more than hear through the reinforced concrete wall of the observation bunker. Nobody needed to expose their eyes to the threat: advanced high speed cameras captured several hundred frames of the total atomic level destruction of the crash ass. They have all they need to know.
A young buck, one of the junior scientists assigned to do all the work as dour white-haired experts frown behind him, keys up the PA system.
"Test chair #XC2832 dash 9, test 2: one hundred fifty-five kilos. Total loss of derriere."
Fire extinguishers have already deployed, clearing the burning debris left behind from the failure of the Gǒushǐ Heavy Industrial Concern compressed-gas cylinder deep within that test chair. The alarms are reset, and a new seat is wheeled into the test chamber. It is three and a half hours until lunch.
As I leave the lab, I notice that there are no office chairs anywhere to be seen inside the work areas. Everyone stands. They know the risks.
