My wife makes Excel spreadsheets for our children. Their color-coded schedules are detailed in neat cells, and taped to the pantry precisely at eye level to a 4- and 6-year-old. As I type this, she is downstairs, organizing the contents of said pantry. She’s a woman who thrives on order and predictability. She doesn’t like surprises, but she’s learning to take them in stride.

In fact, just last month a gigantic beanbag showed up at her front door, and she didn’t even chase off the delivery guy. (The same cannot be said for the refrigerator delivery guys, when I tried to surprise her with a new fridge last year.)

In all fairness, I should point out that, unlike with the fridge, I warned her that I was expecting a shipment. So rather than chasing the delivery guy off the property, while asserting that she was “not going to sign a god-damn thing,” she simply accepted the six-foot box and called me up.

“Honey, they just delivered your Sumo chair thingee.”

The “Sumo chair thingee” was actually a “Sumo Omni” – a big-ass beanbag (BAB) with a heavy–duty, rip-proof (possibly bullet-proof, probably not fire-proof. I don’t know. Don’t try it at home.) nylon shell encasing a dense swarm of “Sumo beads” inside.

I explained to my patient wife that I intended to put this fine piece of furniture through the paces and review it. She was dubious.

“Review it? People review movies. People review books. People don’t review chairs.”

“Watch me,” I said, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing.

Reviewing the beanbag was more difficult than I thought. For the first two days the chair was in my house, I was unable to actually sit on it, as was occupied by one or both of my sons, and/or my wife. This brings me to my first complaint about the BAB – it should come in sets, not alone. A piece of furniture this comfortable is always going to be occupied, and that means somebody else is going to be stuck on the stupid old sofa that he got from his in-laws.

The beauty of the BAB is that it is dense enough that you can put it into just about any position and it stays there. Stand it on its side and it becomes hammock-shaped chair for one. Lean it against a wall (or against a stupid old sofa that you got from your in-laws) and it becomes a loveseat. Flip in on its nose and you’ve got an upright chair. It supports your body in just about any position.

Barbarian Child and Junior have abandoned climbing on all other downstairs furniture in favor of the BAB. According to my kids, it is “awesome for Lego Star Wars 2 on the Game Cube,” and it is “really good to sit in when we watch the movie where the lawn gnomes come alive.”

Barbarian Child would also like to point out it is “a boat, and that these other pillows are the escape boats, and that the bad guys can’t get the escape boats because they are too fast. PPPPPPPPPBBBBBBBBBTTTT!”