Didn't get the memo.

It's a good thing when your son remembers to tell you that the current gallon of milk is the last one on the premises. You just wish he'd mention it when he first collects it from the basement refrigerator and not when he pours out the last drop for his dinner drink. So while the chicken flautas are warming in the oven, I make the half-mile straight dash along Forest Avenue to the Playland Market, the nearest deli, noted for its coffee. (A smidgen of hazelnut . . . aaah!)

On the way there, in the gathering twilight, I pass two people, a man and woman, walking swiftly along the opposite sidewalk, each carrying a well-upholstered formal dining chair.

Odd. Have they been scavenging among the items left out for the weekly bulk garbage pick-up? But that took place this morning. And the chairs look too good for trash. Ah well . . .

Five minutes later, now equipped with milk, I drive back, and in exactly the same spot, I pass a man and two women hurrying in the opposite direction from before, also carrying fancy dining chairs. Not sure if any of the people were the same, but the chairs were certainly different.

Not something you see every day. Is this some fad or fashion I'm unaware of? When I trot out Leila on the leash tomorrow, will I be committing a stylistic faux pas if I'm not clutching a Hepplewhite side chair in my spare hand? Is this a new trend in flash mobs, involving impromptu banqueting? Does swinging now embrace furniture, because traditional human wife-swapping was condemned by liberal Rye as glaringly animatist? And why does it bother me so much that I can't think of any rational explanation for this behavior?