Published: November 06, 2009 03:12 pm      

Invention leads to embarrassing arrest

Phil Riddle, Democrat Editor

It must have come about after a request to clean out the garage.

I can almost hear it now.

“Honey, when are you going to haul off that old lawnmower and that wretched, worn out old recliner? I need more room for my antique hat box collection, my yarn and boxes of junk I’ll never open.”

While mindlessly enjoying a cold one in front of a game and before thinking, 62-year old Dennis Anderson of Duluth, Minn. must have responded, “I can’t throw those out, I’m working on something.”

And thus, to save a trip to the dump, he was forced to tinker.

And he became really caught up in the project.

Guys, you can’t really argue with the results. Anderson combined the two landfill-bound items to create a mobile La-Z-Boy.

An internal combustion Barcalounger.

A recliner that gets 20 miles per gallon and can trim a 24-inch swath of Bermuda.

An easy chair that goes from 0-60 in ... well, you get the picture.

How great would that be.

“Honey, would you walk the dog?”

And you wouldn’t even have to get up,

“Sweetie, could you run to the store for some low-fat yogurt and moon pies?”

And you just roll to the store, through the checkout and home.

Now, regardless of where he goes, Anderson always sits in his favorite chair.

Even when he gets arrested.

According to the Associated Press, Anderson has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized chair while drunk.

If this story had a soundtrack, a George Jones song would be playing in the background.

Anderson reportedly told the cops he left a bar in the northern Minnesota town of Proctor on his chair after drinking eight or nine beers.

His blood alcohol content was reported to be 0.29, more than three times the legal limit.

How’d he get caught?

Not an observant officer patrolling the Minnesota roadways.

“This is One Adam-12. We have a report of a tattered brown leather one-seater driving erratically.”

Not a member of a neighborhood watch organization.

“Officer, I’ve noticed some suspicious furniture that keeps circling my house.”

Nope, Anderson, with eight or nine beers in him, reclined in his vehicle, headed home and hit a parked car.

It would have to be embarrassing to admit you hit a vehicle that was not even moving, but to be arrested because you were too drunk to control your recliner?

Police, who report the drunk sitter was not seriously injured, said the chair had a lot of after-market options including a stereo and cup holders.

I wonder if the cops impounded and towed his chair?