TIFU by breaking my toe while trying to fight my desk chair.

So this actually happened to me a little while ago, but I was suggested I share it here, and I think y'all will get a few laughs out of it. Hopefully, if anyone else is having this unique issue, it may help them out. My toe is (almost) fully recovered by now, but I don't think I'll ever see my chair the same way again.

For context, I'm 23 and have been living on my own (with my girlfriend) for the first time in my life these past 2 years. I'm a little on the larger side, and I work from home as a call center representative. A good while ago, I had bought kind of a cheaper desk chair, as it was all I could really afford at the time.

Well, the base where the wheels connect was a bit flimsy, and I noticed it was getting harder to roll around freely over the last year. Aparently, the wheels were starting to bend out of the base, and eventually, one of the wheels popped out entirely. This broke the plastic where the wheel slots into the base and made my chair functionally inoperable. I needed to replace the base on my chair because I could not afford an entirely new chair. So, I ordered an extra-sturdy metal base online.

Now, at this time, I was not in a good place mentally. Without getting too into the details, a lot of really bad stuff had been happening, and I struggle with pretty severe anxiety. My chair breaking under my weight this way was really the shit-cherry on top. I was feeling very self-conscious and angry at myself and the world around me.

Anyways, the new base got to our apartment, and this is where the fuckup begins. In order to remove the old base from the cylinder, I had to buy a rubber mallet from walmart because they were so tightly connected. Anyways, this is what that mallet looks like now.

Obviously, this was not working. I was fully fighting this thing at this point. I was taking out my full anger and frustrations on this chair, and it didn't seem to be budging in the slightest. All the WD40 in the world did nothing to help. I really needed this chair for my job, and I was beginning to panic. This was supposed to be easy. To me, this chair represented everything, making life harder for me, and I was irrationally whacking it fruitlessly until the mallet broke in half and flew across the apartment. The cylinder was FUSED to the base after all the time spent sitting on the chair. I should have given up and bought a new chair at this point, but unfortunately, I don't give up that easily.

I found that I was able to duct tape the mallet back together, and now it was war. Giving up meant I was just going to take lifes shit, and I was out for vengeance. I was hitting this base so hard I felt like a blacksmith forging their masterpiece. There were chunks of rubber littering the floor, and the mallet was actually warm to the touch by the time I called it a night.

I was sore, tired, disheartened, and had lost the first two battles to this inanimate object. I needed sleep and decided to continue tomorrow...

I lifted the chair off my couch so I could move it to the floor and sit down for a minute. However, my hands, covered in sweat and oil, had a different idea. The chair slipped, and the metal cylinder landed directly on one of my middle toes. The pain shot through my whole leg. I've stubbed my toe before, but this was something else. The pain was immeasurable, but I honestly didn't think it was broken. I just couldn’t figure out why the pain wouldn't subside until I looked up how long a stubbed toe is supposed to hurt for, lol.

I hardly slept at all that night, but you can imagine how I was feeling. When I woke up, my toenail was actually black, and I had to call out of work, despite working from home, because not keeping my toe elevated above my heart made the pain far too unbearable. It was time to go nuclear. While bedridden, I made one last attempt to defeat this chair. I looked online and found a cylinder replacement tool, and I ordered it without hesitation.

Once the tool arrived, I could kind of waddle around for a small amount of time, so I went right to work, and I genuinely cannot recommend this product* more for this problem. I actually won. I had my doubts, but this secret weapon saved my life. I probably would have saved more money just buying a whole new chair, but the satisfaction of tossing the inseperable base and cylinder into the dumpster is unparalleled.

But damn, this whole experience was definitely a new low point in my life

TL;DR: I broke my toe trying to fix my chair, and it probably got a little too personal.

*Originally, this was linked, but I think it was caught by a spam filter, which is understandable. But if you need it, it was called something like "Office Oasis cylinder replacement tool."