Motorized La-Z-Boy: Where do I sign up?

Drunken driving is not funny. Not now, not ever. But the grimmest temperance advocate must have had the hint of a grin when reading about the Proctor man who motorized his La-Z-Boy -- and got a DWI when he drove the chair into a parked car. People love this story. The headline could read "Man on motorized La-Z-Boy drives through mall, opens canister of aerosolized ebola virus," and most guys would say: whoa, motorized La-Z-Boy? Dude's living the dream.

It has cupholders and headlights. It has a racing sticker. It has everything except a catheter and an Ethernet port. Why? Because sometimes you just don't want to get out of the chair to go to the fridge. The reclining chair, after all, is not like ordinary chairs. Once you get in, grab the lever and bring up the footrest, you are committed. It's the posture of astronauts in their capsule -- and don't they have help getting up? Right. Many a man has wondered whether he could make a motorized lounger to drive into the next room for a beer ... but how would you get the beer out? A pole with a rope on the end? A trained monkey! Yes! But the relative scarcity of commercially available monkeys usually puts an end to the idea.

Not for the man in Proctor. His experiment had an ignoble conclusion, because it really does not reflect well on someone to get a DWI while operating living-room furniture. But surely someone in Minneapolis could refine the idea, and do so in accordance with every cliché possible. Instead of a La-Z-Boy, a fine Stickley chair. MPR sticker instead of a racing stripe. A hybrid engine. Think of your morning commute, with elegantly attired professionals silently whirring down the streets in arts-and-crafts chairs!

I'm not saying the mayor has to give us a dedicated lane on Park and Portland for our chairs. But then again, there is an election coming up.

jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 • More at www.startribune.com/buzz

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