Maybe electric chairs should be made more comfortable?
Because apparently, they are not.
I mean, why should they be? I don’t want to be crass, but it’s not like the designer probably fretted much over the user experience.
This all makes sense, but you would think that a compassionate society would want one to be as comfortable as possible right before they made them endured the ultimate punishment – that carries with it an eternal consequence.
Or – maybe – we should just find a painless punishment for this, instead of worrying about chair design.
Truth be told, I think I saw an electric chair on a tour somewhere as a child. I think it was somewhere in Florida. The tour guide asked if anyone wanted to sit in it. There were a few laughs, but no takers. But I don’t know though, maybe that was all a dream.
On a tour of Angola State Penitentiary in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I even sat in an impotent old electric chair. What did I learn? That an electric chair is not a comfortable chair. It is really one of the least comfortable chairs I have ever sat in. Why should this be? After all, it is the last chair you will ever know, shouldn’t it at least be okay? In my opinion, the electric chair should be a La-Z-Boy or a recliner of some sort. When creating a death chair, here is the one word designers should keep in mind: comfort.
-Rich Cohen, Tough Jews