Suddenly, the unthinkable happens!
The house is filled with relatives and friends on their best behavior and the day is going splendidly. You’ve cooked all day for a big family celebration dinner.
Everyone takes their place at the table and sits down. Uncle Burt, is the last to sit, pulls in his chair and “CRACK, CRACK!”
Everything goes in slow motion. The chair seems to crumble and Uncle Burt… disappears.
Uncle Burt’s bum is certainly padded enough to save him from any injury.
When he grabbed the table, his weight, however, was taking the entire table down until your punk nephew Spence was fast enough to catch it. (Spence fancies himself as a martial artist.)
Spence holding the table down, however, flipped Uncle Burt backward. The dear man ended up sprawled on his back with a fresh goblet of fresh ice water spilled and resting in an ungentlemanly place. The rest of the contents were all across the front of his neatly pressed jeans. (Who presses jeans?? I digress…)
As soon as everyone figured out that Uncle Burt will be okay, the collective symphony of expletives and startled screams quieted down. Then they had the surprising realization that Spence had saved the day – and before anyone else even figured out what happened.
All around the table, begrudging admiration Spence began to leak out. (Spence’s shoulders were noticeably straighter the rest of the day because he was was finally being taken seriously!)
Once their hearts stopped pounding, everybody dove in to help clean up the monumental mess – enough to eat while that fantastic smelling food was still hot. (There was nothing dripping, anyway.)
Uncle Burt ended up with a fat lip, a sincerely bruised ego, and a somewhat-reasonable dental bill (which of course, you paid, being the good person you are and all).
Your pesky sister, Yvette, caused family trouble by capturing the fracas with that fancy, new phone. (She’d been showing off ad nauseum all day.) Everyone felt sorry for him although nobody could figure out how to delete the pictures after they wrestled the phone away from Yvette.
One shot was a lovely artistic side-view that showed bits of corn, green beans, and watery unrecognizable chunks of food adhering to the sides of butter-smeared dishes. Another captured the carpet, glistening where it had been met by the dish sliding on spilled gravy.
Yvette, always a major pain, will take much glee, year after year, in trotting out those pictures. (But don’t worry, you’ll stop blushing by year 3 or so. It will take a little longer for Uncle Burt.)
Save Yourself – Tighten Up Your Dining Room Chairs Now
Why do dining room chairs get out of whack so easily?
Many of today’s dining room chairs are shipped in pieces so they’ll fit in a flat box for shipping. They are then generally assembled at the retail store before they come to you .
Over time, on virtually all dining room chairs, even with gentle wear and tear, legs can work their way loose.
Loose legs are liable to break.
This eventually happens on virtually every surface, but often the culprit is the grout lines on a tile or laminate floors.
As the chair is pulled back and forth over the grout, it gradually pulls on the bolts that hold your chair and legs together.
I’ve found many instances where the leg became loose and then snapped. All of that damage could have been avoided just by performing a little preventative maintenance.
This is not rocket science. Anyone with the simplest tools can do this. Turn the chair over and inspect the bolts.
Some may use an Allen wrench type tool which often comes with your chairs. Some may also use a Philips head screwdriver or a socket to adjust the tension.
When tightening any loose bolts, be firm but take caution to not rival Superman. If you tighten too vigorously, you may damage the fitting that the bolt is screwed into and that is a bigger problem to address.
If you find that you are constantly having to tighten your bolts, here here are a couple of ways to help keep them in place.
- Go to an auto supply store and get some Loc-tite. This product will keep the bolts in place.
- OR Take the bolt all the way out, squeeze some super-glue on the end of it and rebolt it into place.
Dining room tables are also usually bolted together, the same precautions mentioned above should be taken.
I do recommend that you check your dining room set twice a year, (perhaps on the time change) to keep the legs from breaking.
Consider running over to the homes of your parents or other older loved ones to tighten up their chairs to make them safe, too.