Rolling on the Ball Chair

I gots me one of them ball chairs a few weeks ago!  MJagger and I decided we'd improve our cores and balance by using ball chairs at work and thus we are now the proud owners of these delightfully ugly enigmas.  We were inspired by our boss, who uses a ball chair in her office. For you who have no idea what I'm talking about, it's basically an exercise ball in a chair frame. The maker of the chair indicates:

"Your body, when positioned on top of an exercise ball, is constantly making small adjustments, often imperceptible, to remain balanced and thus is constantly exercising a large group of muscles in doing so. By strengthening your body's core muscle group you help improve your posture, have better balance and guard against back injuries." 

(For the record, we probably could have gone to Wallyworld and purchased a $10 exercise ball and gotten the same benefit, but we are too sophisticated for such nonsense.  We need to spend oodles of money to get our money's worth.)


I'm using mine in place of my desk chair, so when I'm at my desk working on the computer, I balancing upon my ball.  (There are SO many jokes here, I don't even know where to start.  Trust me when I say MJagger and I have had all sorts of laughs about our big balls. I will do my best to limit my sophomoric jokes in this blog but it's gonna be REALLY hard.  See what I mean?)  The ball chair is quite the center of attention--people walk into my office to ask me something, start to ask and then stop mid-sentence...after all, I'm perched on top of a big, black exercise ball--it's hard to stay on track when you see something like that.  They usually never say why they came into my office as they are so distracted by the ball chair that they forget everything and instead stare at my ball.

The first question people ask is: "What IS that?"
I answer: "It's a ball chair!"

The second question people ask is: "Did the agency pay for that?"
I exclaim, "NO, the agency did NOT pay for our ball chairs.  I paid for it."

The third question people ask is....well, a lot of times they don't ask another question as they are very confused by the whole ball chair thing.  They usually make a sound like, "Huh!" or smile while maintaining a quizzical look.  If they do ask a third question, it's usually, "How much does something like that cost?"

Back to me and MJagger ordering the balls.  The ball chairs came in the mail, as MJagger ordered them on-line.  Poor MJagger--she should NEVER order anything on line.  Never.  When she does try, something always goes wrong--they send the wrong thing, it's broken upon arrival, her account gets hacked, it doesn 't show up, etc. I can't tell you how many times her various accounts have been hacked or how many arguments she's had with customer service representatives. This time, her ball arrived but mine didn't, despite the packing slip and box indicating this was "2 of 2" and that they had been mailed together.  MJagger started sending hate mail immediately.  (It is noted that she did get a speedy reply indicating that our balls had indeed been sent out together but one ball was behind and still in the mail, separated during transit.  I hate when my balls get separated.)  We decided to put her ball chair together so we could see what it looked like.....

The first problem is that she was missing a piece.  OF COURSE SHE WAS!  She didn't have the stability bar to keep the ball from rolling off the stand.  Back to contacting the company she went.  She decided we should proceed because the stability bar thing was the last thing we'd need to put on, so it wouldn't hamper our progress.

The second problem was that when we inflated her ball per the actual directions (yes, we actually followed the directions), it was so....little.  I mean shockingly little.  We both stared at her little ball.

MJagger: "Jeezus Christ, I can't sit on that! That's not how BossBall's chair looks."

Me: "Huh.  That's really small.  That can't be right.  Maybe they sent the wrong ball."

MJagger: "Why does this always happen to me? Why do I order anything on line?"

Me: (Silent...I have learned the lesson of not answering rhetorical questions. I'm getting smarter in my old age.) "How big is it supposed to be?"

MJagger: "52 inches."

Me: "That sounds small.  Do balls come in different sizes?"

MJagger: "I ordered the same size BossBall has.  They are all 52 inches."  (She pulls up the link on the internet and points to our chair.) See? 52 inches."

Me: "That's not 52 inches. Hand me that tape measure."

I measure her ball.  It is 48 inches.  It looks teeny small.  I look at the directions. "It says your ball will get bigger but you have to wait overnight."

MJagger: "It's not gonna get that much bigger....is it?"

Me: I shrug my shoulders.  I can't imagine the ball is going to get much bigger, but I don't know much about balls.  (See? So much fodder.)

Me: "Hand me the tape measure.  I'll go measure BossBall's chair."

I go upstairs to the BossBall's office, knock BossBall off her ball and indeed measure her chair.  56 inches.  I'm not sure if I should be happy or terrified to tell MJagger this.  I inquire from BossBall if her ball was little when she started this whole endeavor.  She assured me it looks very small the first day but you must follow the directions and only inflate it to 48 inches and wait overnight as the ball will stretch.  I have to trust her--after all, she IS our boss and she IS using a properly inflated ball chair and she is well versed about balls.

MJagger and I are not known for our patience.  We want to inflate her ball NOW; however, when I relay BossBall's message to MJagger, we for some reason choose to follow the directions and try to employ the patience we don't usually have.  I can't speak for her, but I can tell you that I had a really hard time walking away from that little ball.

Fast forward to the next day.  I stop in at MJagger's office and don't see her, but I do see her fully-inflated ball, perched happily in the frame, proudly set in front of her computer desk.  It looks full sized.  I am amazed by this. I cannot believe it.  I grab the tape measure and measure her ball.  It is 56 inches! (This is a bit concerning, as it's supposed to be inflated to 52 inches, not 56 inches...but MJagger knows a lot more about balls than I do, so I trust her that a bigger ball than normal is okay.)  I also notice that my ball chair has arrived.  I drag my box out to the car (our offices are in different buildings) and take it to its new home.

I, unlike MJagger, have all the pieces in my box.  It's easy to put together because I just watched MJagger put hers together. I inflate my ball to 48 inches. It is so painfully small but I must trust in the process.  I wait the required 24 hours and then inflate my ball to....56 inches!  I cannot believe how much my ball is able to expand.  I deflate it to 54 inches, as I am nervous about exceeding the size limit. I plop myself on top of my ball and get to work.

We have been sitting on our balls for two weeks.  Strangely enough, I haven't talked to MJagger about how much she likes or doesn't like her ball chair. I guess I'll ask her that next week. Me? I like the ball chair.  I don't feel like I'm any stronger or any better balanced or sporting a improved core, but it's pretty early in the game and I already have pretty good balance (bet you thought I was gonna say I already have a pretty buff core--ha ha!).  I like sitting on it.  I like talking about it when people come into my office.  I like everything about it except that....

....well, I have this pimple on my butt right now (Face it.  We all get a pimple on our butt every now and again.  I haven't had one that I know of in years but I have one right now.  I proudly own this); unfortunately, the pimple is right where my butt cheek meets the ball.  It's rather uncomfortable, so I've been limiting my time on the ball.  I switch back and forth with my regular office chair.  As long as the ball didn't cause the pimple, it will be all good.  If the ball is the cause of the pimple (like I said, I haven't had one for years), I am going to be very bitter.

I'll have to ask MJagger if she has a pimple on her butt.......

maybe our balls are sweaty......

and, they lead to pimples.

God help us all if our sweaty balls cause pimples......

(p.s. if I happen to slip off my sweaty ball, feel free to laugh)