I did something crazy. For my midwestern sensibilities, at least. Something unthinkable, frivolous, reckless even. Something beyond the pale of normalcy. I hope you can forgive me.

I bought something nice for myself. Sue me! But rest assured—it was on sale (20% off, in fact). 

A real, genuine, brand-new Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman. Yes, it’s real Herman Miller, I told the naysayers on Twitter. I wouldn’t be caught dead with a knock-off. No Chinese replica can capture the aura of the real thing, and, for an artist like me, the aura is the point.

The Eames chair, the genuine article, is an icon of immense totemic power. An icon of mid-century modernism. A Midwest icon. Hell, an icon of West Michigan, where it’s still manufactured by Herman Miller (now MillerKnoll), headquartered in Zeeland. It reminds me of Grand Rapids, the “Furniture City,” a town I’ve never particularly loved, but find myself reminiscing about. I remember seeing an original Eames in the Grand Rapids Art Museum and thinking, “One day.”

The chair is a design legend, the peak formulation of famed husband and wife team Charles and Ray Eames. Introduced in 1956, it was a luxury product even then, the antithesis to mass-produced, easily accessible furniture. Charles’s vision was for a chair that took on the “warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman’s mitt.” The certificate of authenticity (the chair comes with one, like any real artwork) still reads “designed by Charles and Ray Eames.” The steel stamp on the bottom, likewise, is emblazoned with their name. It’s necessary, too, as the Eames is widely counterfeited and reproduced. The originals, however, last for generations.

Whatever pagan sensibilities still exist in the midwestern mind, the Eames chair figures as a sort of household god, those object-spirits bringing prosperity and health to a home. I won’t lie, this factored into my purchase. The possibility that the subliminal power of such an object, long coveted, would seep into my life and strengthen me. Just think of the confidence it would bring.

Yes, yes, it’s just a chair. But it’s THE chair. The archetypal chair. The chair of all chairs. Not only that, but it’s a damn comfortable chair. You sink right into the thing like an old baseball glove, indeed. The full sticker price for a leather Eames currently stands at an astronomical $5,795 (Herman Miller runs sales in the fall and spring, hint hint), but in the end, it’s worth every penny.

At least that’s what I tell myself. In the Midwest, it’s criminal to buy nice things for yourself. You have to justify every purchase as if it was a necessity, or at least, something you were obligated to buy. It’s completely immodest to spend on luxury items, or worse, to flaunt them. Yet we do, in our own way. It just requires a bit of supplication, a transmutation of ostentatiousness into faux humility. 

You couldn’t buy a Lamborghini in Michigan without telling the neighbors something like, “Well the salesman gave me a really good deal, and I needed a fast car to beat the morning traffic.” They’d nod their heads, playing along with the ritual. “Ope, well, of course you need a car, and well, if the yellow Lambo was on sale, that’s too good to pass up!”

I found myself immediately justifying the purchase to myself and others. My brother texted me, “You spent how much on a chair??” Well it was on sale, I told him, and these chairs do hold their value over time, even appreciating in value, just look on eBay… he understood in the end. I asked him not to tell mom. This is the level of shame with such an expensive purchase. She’d be horrified, and I’d have to repeat the whole ritual again.

Time will tell, but for now, I have no regrets. I could have died in the sand dunes of Silver Lake months ago, but instead, I’m alive and sitting in the world’s finest chair, typing away. I’ll dispense with the humility eventually and allow myself to enjoy my fancy new chair without those little pangs of guilt. That always goes away, along with the thrill of a new purchase. 

In the end, you forget the symbolism, the price tag, and just sit in it. You read a book, scroll your phone, think, relax. The real proof of the Eames comes when you realize you’re sitting in the chair and haven’t thought about it at all. Midwest humility perfected in ergonomic design, your body fully grounded so your mind can wander.

Bobby Mars is an artist, alter ego, and former art professor. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.