Ravished Couch

So, it's our "trash week" this week.  That means that whatever junk we can find to put on the curb will be taken.  If not by scavengers, by the city.  It's fun!

At least, it's supposed to be.

When the time came to start, I marched right into the garage and picked up two lamps that still work but are too old that we have replaced.  I marched those lamps right out to the curb and laid them down.  (They have since found their way onto the porch because someone thinks they are worth money, but I just am done with them, you know?)

My husband and a daughter worked hard all day to add other things.  I was proud of my daughter because she pitched in and helped with the project as long as her dad did.  Which was long.  I was proud of my husband because--all by himself--he chose to donate an old couch to the pile.

This couch has been a source of disagreement between us and a blockage to purchasing a new couch for our family room.  We both agree that it would be really nice to have a couch in the family room and turn it into the main television room instead of the living room.  But whenever we see couches for sale and I start drooling over them, Paul has reminded me that we have a "perfectly good couch" standing on end in a corner of the garage.  This has stopped the shopping every time.

This perfectly good couch has stood on one end in the garage since we moved into this house, several years ago, before the current administration, to give you an idea.

Before that, it did sit in the family room in our old house.  My objection to it being set up in the new house had to do with Paul's three cats.  My version is that they seem to have had several drunken parties on it.  Paul's version is that that never happened.

Paul is right that it is a well-made sturdy couch, still in good condition (except for the aforementioned feline interference).  He was also right that it had a good, functional sleeper sofa feature.

But, think nineteen-seventies.  This is a couch that his mother used to have, way back then. (Think tan and orange plaid.)  Yeah.

We both agree that the fabric is outdated.  Paul's proposed solution is to purchase a cover for it.  I have nixed that every time because I just don't think that will deal appropriately with the feline party issue.

Can you say stalemate?

So.  When Paul said he was going to kick the couch to the curb, my heart did a little flutter for him.  I hoped he would really do it, and feel okay about it.

He really did it.

He set up the couch with all its many pillows, facing the street.  It looked as good as it possibly could. 

I later found out that he was nurturing hope that it would yet find a good home.

Of course it was always possible that someone would drive by and say, "Hey!  You don't see couches with tan and orange plaid all over them anymore--I've been looking for this couch everywhere!" and adopt it.  We waited all day for this to happen.  It didn't.

We waited the next day for it to happen.  It didn't.

I was going to bed on the second day when Paul came in to tell me some sad news. His hopes for his baby had been dashed when a slasher-type person had come by, thrown off the pillows, thrown open the sleeper part, and hacked the metal frame of the bed right out of the couch. 

I comforted Paul as best I could.

But, the next morning, when I went to the gym, I understood better.

The couch had been dragged off the curb into the street.  Pillows were scattered everywhere in disarray.  Its secret inward bed part had been dragged out, slashed up, and left exposed to anyone's view.  The couch that had served Paul's family for so many years was lying there in total disgrace: slashed, exposed, dissheveled, murdered.

It was like happening upon a crime scene.

I thought, "Who does this kind of thing?"  I know all about scavengers and have seen them prowling around city trash day piles before.  But, really?  Who would drag someone's treasured couch, all neatly left out with its best foot forward, into the street and mangle and ravish it like that, just taking the part they want and then not even folding it back up again, but leaving it there in that terrible condition?

Yes, we left it for trash, but neatly.

Yes, we were through with it, but Paul had hopes for its future.

We didn't mean for it to fall victim to someone with no manners who apparently only wanted one thing.