Yep, I found me a treasure this morning on my way home from the gym. It's a high-backed stool/chair. Gray metal frame, heavy-duty pegboard-type seat. I saw it, passed by it, and then turned around four times to look at it again before backtracking and claiming it. I'm sure I had that lunatic expression that appears on my face in moments of serendipity. I practically skipped home with it under my arm, a sweaty girl with a giddy grin carrying a trash chair.

Its one leg is a little lame, it has a jagged edge on the side of the seat, and at the bottom of the legs, one of the supporting crossbars (or whatever they're called) is a little twisted. It's a scruffy abandoned dog who needs a bath and some love. And I, ever the champion of the underdog, plan to give it whatever it needs.

The only problem (if you can call it one) is that I'm not exactly the "handy" type. My sister says I don't even know how to properly use a broom. (In fact, I pull pushbrooms.) I once used a stapler as a hammer. I never know which way to unscrew a screw -- if, indeed, I even get as far as actually attempting to do anything that requires that task. I had a feeling the chair knows this, so when I brought it upstairs and set it down against one of the brick walls (I just love the way metal looks against a brick backdrop), I apologized to it.

"I hate to tell you this, but ... I don't know what I'm going to do with you," I said.

"That's OK," the chair replied. "I mean, you saved me from being mauled between the jaws of a garbage truck and death in a landfill. Whatever you do to or with me is fine. I don't even care if you leave me as I am. I'm just happy to be here!"

"And I'm happy to have you here," I said. "Welcome!" I smiled at the chair.

And I swear it smiled back.

You know, I really have this "thing" about inanimate objects. It goes beyond mere anthropomorphism and anthropopathism. I give them voices and make them talk. I confer personalities on them. I bestow them with emotions, attitudes, opinions. (I do the same thing with my dog and cat, but then again, I truly believe that they would say the things I make them say if only they had the facility of speech. And of course I believe that animals are sentient beings and are capable of expressing their feelings facially or through body language. I've always believed this, and always will.) I even see "faces" on inanimate objects.

While I do not consider myself Wiccan (even that is too organized a religion), I do share one of their beliefs (quoted from a site called "flaunt.net"):

... both animate and inanimate objects possess a spirit which forms part of the Whole. [Wiccans] do not use the term "spirit" in the Judeo-Christian sense of a "ghost," but rather that essence which every object possesses that links it to nature and makes it an inalienable part of the universe.

My new chair agrees.