The coffee table is an ingenious device that serves many purposes in
today's busy world.
Firstly, it acts as an overflow platform
for the bit of kitchen surface next to the sink. Dirty plates, mugs, cutlery
and occasionally magazines mingle gregariously with empty
bottles and food wrappings. The space beside the sink is usually high up, so items falling from it are at risk of breakage. The coffee
table on the other hand seldom rises more than a foot from the ground. Plates can be stacked
endlessly with no risk of damage should their stacking become too
precarious.
Secondly, the coffee table is a far more comfortable thing on which
to rest one's feet whilst watching television than anything designed for such
a purpose. Very few people actually buy pouffes or ottomans (or whatever they're called) because the coffee table is
much less
expensive, may be wiped clean and can support a great many feet along its
length.
Thirdly, most coffee tables have a small
rack beneath the main surface on which newspapers, magazines, television
guides and remote controls may be hidden.
Not only do coffee tables function as a repository for many belongings1,
they are also the source of a calming and skill-developing pastime: the art of rearranging the plethora of junk
on the table's surface. Despite the surface clutter - every mug in the house, the plates from three weeks of meals
and newspapers no-one can remember buying - room can
always be found by the skilled rearranger
for their feet. This means that when they get up
to leave, the plate, glass and crisp packets the table user
has generated during their stay will have somewhere to go - they can simply
be transferred from the chair-arm or the floor to the space on the table
from which feet have recently been removed.
Marvellous things, coffee tables.
1 Rotting food, mouldy coffee and whatever happened to
be on the bottom of your foot when you scraped it on the edge of the table.
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