My Hustle

            One feature of the ‘new normal’ of our economy are empty buildings full of piles of office chairs, gathering dust. More people are working online from home, and if they worried about the office chair, they grabbed one from the basement or got one new. So, that’s ‘plus one’ office chair. And, since when have all those old, empty buildings, that unused ‘brick and mortar’, had such a negative connotation? (2010.) Meanwhile, I’m broke, and I’ve thought of a way to make these dusty lemons into lemonade.

            I’ve thought of a hustle that can bring unused buildings and office chairs together into a fun evening. “Recreational Office-Chair Rolling”. I mean, have you ever scooted backward a few feet in an office chair to access the printer? (Wee!) For some, it’s the highlight of their day. Wouldn’t you like to do that forever? I can arrange it so you can.

            There are plenty of empty warehouses with hardwood floors for sale or lease. First of all, I’ll get me some tubs of wood fill. Fill those ruts and gaps, plane it, sand it down, a lick of varnish and you’ve got a floor you can roll on. Slap off the sawdust, and I’m done. And, the office chairs are easy. I’m sure they’re giving them away. Padded executive chairs, or the teeny-tiny ones for when you spend a few moments collating what the printer spat out. Variety is the spice of life. Have an assistant ready with the chairs for those who’ve paid their seven dollars for unlimited rolling. Customers would get personalized attention and their very own chair.

            It would be like a roller-rink for young professionals but with office chairs, and smelling less like anti-fungal spray.

            What would I need? Not much. A patron-desk, snack bar, bathrooms and gallery, and enough 2x4 and plywood for the wall around the oval. A sound-system. I’d remember to include ‘Little GTO’, and ‘Hot Rod Lincoln’. How much would that cost? Almost nothing!

            One wouldn’t roll forward, you see. The best way to roll is backward. Take them toes and push and push and push. Of course, the support posts throughout the rink would be lightly padded and painted safety-orange, but that would only help as people look back and up, wondering what they just hit.

            I can just imagine it now. Office chairs don’t ‘whizz’- they rumble. People would come inside and have to raise their voices as they buy their tickets, over the dance music and the rattle of those chairs. It would be like listening to a cement mixer fitted with a Bluetooth speaker playing ‘Love Roller Coaster’.

            People might be timid about the technique needed for rolling, but even facing backward, as one continues ovally, they would do fine. You can judge when to turn by looking at the wall rush beside you, and by the expressions on the faces of those watching.

            Now I’m excited! Mine would be a place for those anchorite zoomers who’ve been hiding since the first time Trump said there was no pandemic. They’ve been holed up in front of their computer for two years, and need the stink blown off them! I would have sing-a-longs during short breaks from rolling. We’d do the Hokey-Pokey. I’d have door prizes! An office-chair rodeo where rollers at or near the advanced stage work their way around small pylons to circus music. And a race for all comers toward the end of the session. Only the most competitive rollers would own the floor. I hope it doesn’t come off as too derivative of Cecil B DeMille. But I am concerned about potential injury.

            Of course, I’d have trained personnel onsite, to help when accidents occur. They could double as DJs, and roll around to show rookies how it’s done. They’d pick up jettisoned casters, plastic shards, jewelry and other lost items.

            But, just where people enter, I mean, right there in the foyer on a 4x6 (‘) sheet of masonite screwed there on the wall, in big block letters, I should have a disclaimer. Something like:

            “Posted: Beyond this point, owners and management cannot be held responsible for any injury. Roll at your own risk. Recreational Rolling will result in Bodily Harm including, but not limited to: smushed toes, wonky patellas, splinters, skinned knuckles, lost toenails, head bonks and bruised ankle-knobs, either all at once or in rapid succession.”

            But, what I worry about most is the name. I was thinking “Roll USA”, but that might be a bit presumptuous at this stage, there being only one branch. I’ll call it ‘Roll Illinois’. It really 'rolls' off the tongue, if you’re accustomed to saying ‘Illinois’.

            Roll Illinois will bring people together. Nothing would beat the moment as they dim the lights for the ‘Couple’s Roll’ and put a small spot on that disco-ball. Couples would hold hands and do laps as the DJ fires up ‘Color My World’, and then proceeds to talk too much over it. (Can’t be helped-Don’t try.) Many relationships would be sealed during ‘Couple’s Roll’. How wonderfully ironic it would be, as you roll holding hands with your sweetie, going ‘round and ‘round, that you hear, through the rattles, thunks and yelps, strains of “We’ve Only Just Begun”. Studies show that many dates are enhanced during a ride on the roller coaster or tower of terror. The danger shared rolling together would cement that relationship all the way through to the great-grandchildren and golden years beside the reservoir before the DJ announces that the ‘Free Roll’ is back in effect.

            Beautiful. I’ve not only planned a venue, I’ve invented a sport! This will really take off! Office chair rolling will evolve, and take on extreme aspects. I can’t say what those aspects will be- I’ll leave that to the young. I wouldn’t do crazy things like that. Anymore.

            During the X Games, announcers predict what tricks a skateboarder will try to execute during the free-style pre-run countdown. With officechair rolling, they’ll have nothing to say, because once that buzzer goes off and that chair heads down the ramp, anything goes.

            How could I even conceive of such a hazardous activity? (They would ask during my ‘sponsored content’ interview on the local noontime news.) And, I would respond, wearing a light salmon suit jacket picked just for the occasion, “How could you ask a question like that in an interview that I paid for? Now, let’s get to the part where I talk about my ‘Roll-A-Thon’ for anxious kittens.”

            I mean, how dare they come up with that even hypothetically? So, some customers get would get ‘dinged up’. There so many other projects I could come up with that would make me look more like a pharma executive. “Roll Illinois” will be wholesome and fun, dammit!

            Then again, maybe I’ll just make backscratchers.