You’re tired of Candice stealing your office chair when you’re in the bathroom. She always denies it because she thinks she’s clever, but just because the chairs look nearly identical doesn’t mean you can’t feel the difference. Candice has been working in this office so long her butt has created a hard cavity in the center of the chair. It’s damn uncomfortable and it’s not your fault, so why she chooses to steal your chair to replace it you just don’t know. You’ve come up with a solution. You hear a scream followed by dull thud from across the hall, and you know Candice has found your solution as well.
“What the fuck?” Candice shrieks as she scrambles to her feet.
You can hear the anger in Candice’s footsteps as she storms into your cubicle. Not having found a satisfactory answer, she repeats her question to you. “What the fuck?”
Soda from lunch still in hand, you spin around in “your” (Candice’s, naturally) chair to face Candice. You take a long sip from your straw, gazing calmly into Candice’s eyes as she stares you down.
You finish your slurp and smile. “What can I help you with, Candice?”
“Why the fuck is your chair missing a wheel?” Candice screams. “I sat down in it and almost broke my neck falling backward!”
“My chair?” you ask with an air of false innocence on your breath. “The chair in my cubicle has five wheels, Candice. Are you saying this chair isn’t mine?”
“Well, uh-“
“…because if this chair isn’t mine, Candice, and you almost broke your neck falling out of a chair in your cubicle, then that means the chair I’m sitting in is yours, and the chair you tried to sit in was mine. That means someone must have switched our chairs while I was in the bathroom. Who would do such a thing?”
Candice has nothing to say.
“The wheel is in a safe place, Candice, so whenever you feel like returning my chair, you can go back to not falling in yours.”
Candice storms back to her cubicle without another word.
“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you!” you say as you spin around in Candice’s chair. Victory is sweet.