At some point in the last two weeks, Suzanne and I were sitting on the back patio — the one with the fire pit, that gets the best late afternoon sunshine — and I said to her, “When I move into the Tiniest House, I’d like to clear some space on the patio by the doors and put a small table and a chair or two out there.” Suzanne agreed that sounded like a good idea, and our conversation moved on to other topics.

A day or two later, we were at the hardware store, buying more paint and gear for our various home repair projects. (Along the path of fixing up the Tiniest House, we’ve also painted Suzanne’s kitchen in the Tiny Mansion, including the ceiling; replaced the wax ring on the Tiniest House toilet; removed an old intercom and doorbell; repaired some holes in the walls, and so on. All of our handy-person skills have leveled up in the last couple weeks!) While I was waiting for her, I sat down in the patio furniture area, on one of these chairs — a rather nice bistro-style rocker with teal blue cushions. It was comfortable, but I didn’t even bother to look at the price: I knew intuitively that it was out of my price range. Plus, my future chair and table were far-future, after I’d gotten all of the things on the “needs” list for my Tiniest House, including blankets, and trash cans, and a shower caddy, and, and, and.

I went back in the store, but when Suzanne and I were leaving, she said, “Hey, did you see these?”, headed straight for the patio furniture, and sat down in the same chair. I had to laugh. Great minds! They were good chairs. But she looked at the price, shook her head, said, “$100 less, maybe…”

I took a photo of the label for future reference, though. And that night, when I was downloading my photos to my computer, I decided to search for the chairs, just to get the photo out of the way. Funny thing: Ace Hardware Online had the exact same chairs — for $110 less, and free store pick-up at the exact same store we’d been at earlier in the day. I sent the link to Suzanne and said, “Split it?” For $400, the patio set was way out of my price range. For $275, it was still more than I was ready to spend. But for $132.50, it might be a deal too good to pass up, despite the need for such useful things as curtains, and cabinets doors, and a nightstand, and, and, and. I don’t think she even paused to think, she just texted back, “Ordered!”

A few days later, she picked the set up at the hardware store and we spent the evening putting them together. Close to sundown, we sat in our chairs and watched the street and chatted. Later, we moved the chairs onto the patio. The next day we ate our lunch out there. The day after, we brought our coffees out from our separate houses. In the evening, we sat in our chairs for a while, then decided to walk the dogs. And while we were walking the dogs, it occurred to me: our patio chairs — metal and teal though they are — are rockers.

We are officially old ladies, sitting on our porch in our rocking chairs together! It’s about twenty years early, I expect, maybe thirty, but the thought still made me laugh.