When Dad and I got engaged back in 1981, he was attending the University of Miami, which had married housing on the Coral Gables campus. A semester before our wedding, we put our names on the waiting list (required a $5 deposit), and one month after we were married in July 1982, we moved into our one-bedroom, one-bath post-War, modernist beauty (designed by renowned Florida architect Marion Manley) —our rent was $285 a month including utilities. Sweet.

The apartment came furnished, and you could just pick out the pieces you wanted to use. The selection was a fairly motley collection of midcentury pieces that had suffered many college life indignities since they were originally purchased circa 1949. We already owned a lot of stuff thanks to our fabulous gift registry (and my pack rat-ness) so we only kept the vinyl covered armless sofa and what was labeled on the inventory as a “Miller’s Chair” (pictured below). These cute little chairs of bent plywood were scattered all around the housing quad—people left them by their front doors and put plants on them. They were clearly regarded as shabby “throwaways” by the University and its tenants.

When we moved out of the apartment the following year (alas Dad graduated and we were kicked out–Dad claims we’d still be living there if it were up to him*), we left behind the sofa but took the little chair with us. Nobody noticed.

Turns out the chair is an original Herman Miller Eames Plywood Lounge Chair—a midcentury and highly collectable design icon. We’ve joked that if we ever needed help paying the mortgage, we could always sell the chair on eBay. (Not a chance.) What I do know is that you both will fight over who gets to keep it. May I suggest you use a coin toss over verbal or physical combat? It will definitely come in handy if you’re ever short on your rent.

*By the way, the married dorms were torn down some time ago to make the Wellness Center. Our honeymoon cottage is now a parking lot-c’est la vie.

The unwanted “Miller’s Chair”