There is a chair in every American house that is not for sitting. It is for clothes. Not dirty clothes. Not clean clothes. A third category that exists only in America and has no name in my language. Worn once. Not soiled. Cannot go in the drawer. Will not go in the hamper. They sit on the chair. Inside I said: THEY HAVE ESTABLISHED A NEUTRAL TERRITORY BETWEEN CLEAN AND UNCLEAN AND THEY HAVE GARRISONED IT WITH A CHAIR. I asked a woman what the chair was called. She said, "The chair." I asked if it had another name. She said, "The clothes chair. The chair. Everybody has one." Everybody has one. She said it with total certainty. She did not know that she was making a claim about three hundred million people. She was correct. I have now surveyed nineteen American homes. Seventeen had the chair. The two that did not had a substitute. One had a stationary exercise bicycle performing the same function. One had a treadmill. Inside I said: WHEN THE CHAIR IS ABSENT, A MACHINE IS CONSCRIPTED. THE FUNCTION MUST EXIST. THE VESSEL IS NEGOTIABLE. I asked the woman when she last sat in it. She said, "In 2019." I asked what would happen if she put the clothes away. She said, "Then I'd have to decide." There it is again. The same word. The drawer, the chair, the same nation, the same refusal. Inside I said: THIS COUNTRY HAS BUILT ITS FURNITURE AROUND THE PLEASURE OF NOT DECIDING, AND IT HAS NEVER ONCE ADMITTED THIS OUT LOUD. I do not have a chair. I have a bench at the foot of my bed. I bought it for shoes. There has never been a shoe on it. There are four shirts on it and I know exactly how clean each one is and I could tell you the order they were placed there and I will not be moving any of them. What is yours. Chair, bike, or treadmill.