My kids never experienced the elementary lift-top combo desk. You know, where the seat and the desk were one? For six years we sat and learned in the desk equivalent of an old iron-seat tractor, only less comfortable. I doubt Herman Miller came up with this painful melding of wood and metal, but whoever did comfort wasn’t a priority. That flip-top cubby was more like a car trunk which held a stash of loose papers, broken crayons, eraser crumbs and pencil shavings that grew exponentially as the year wore on. Throw in the accidentally left-open Elmer’s glue bottle (no doubt because you had been smoothing it over the palm of your hand and peeling it off like dead skin when the teacher caught you) and the inside of your desk was most likely to get wallpapered with your math homework.