COUCH WARS

I feel like the most adult thing we did this weekend was not dropping $5,000 on a new couch. In fact, I am so proud of ourselves for coming to the conclusion so quickly that we probably deserve a trophy. I mean, we told the sales clerk that we needed to go home and remeasure the space and that we’d be back the next day and at the time of saying that, I truly meant every word. Then once we were back in the truck, we both realized at the same time that we did not need a $5,000 couch. But we do need a couch. It is this desperation of need that drove us to even considering a $5,000 couch in the first place.

At the end of July, when our estimated delivery date for the new couch was pushed back to November 30th, I thought “Okay…we can move the futon up from the basement and sit on that until November.” It’s been 1997 in our living room ever since and it did not take long for the two of us to realize that we no longer have 1997 bodies for sitting on 1997 cheap furniture. Once you’ve experienced a couch with armrests, there’s no going back to seating options without armrests. No one is comfortable. Josephine and the cat are the most comfortable with this seating arrangement but that is only because they are laying on me. I could handle all of this if the couch was truly going to arrive on the 30th, but oh no. Friday, I received a new notice of estimated delivery. This one’s for February of 2022 and I feel like this is unacceptable. At this point I don’t even remember what the new couch looks like or feels like. Did we consider all of the things when we sat on this couch in the showroom back in March. BACK IN MARCH! I don’t remember what I ate for dinner on Friday. How am I supposed to remember how comfortable a piece of furniture that I sat on eight months ago is or isn’t?

Wait…I had Thai fried rice for dinner on Friday.

I’m not senile. I’m an adult. I am an adult that has acquired a certain level of standards. That might not mean a $5,000 couch, but it does mean a comfortable affordable couch. So, Michael and I are preparing to play the field with all of the furniture stores. Next weekend, I will medicate myself and then we will drive out to the big furniture mart and sit on all of the couches. It must be comfortable for both us. It must be made of durable, pet friendly materials. And this part? This next bit? It must be in stock or a guaranteed delivery date of two weeks. No more of that estimated delivery bullshit. Because I deserve nice furniture. This is the most important realization from the whole couch experience. I am no longer a poor college student or recent graduate. My student loans have been paid in full. I have automotive insurance that I have been paying on for years and have been so responsible that I did not have to meet a deductible when I filed the loss of V. I have always been (mostly) responsible, but now I have become more financially responsible in ways that I most definitely was not when Chris was alive. My furniture no longer has to be found on the curb or handed down from a family member and my furniture can come pre-assembled.

Because I am a grown up, dammit!

Anyway…that’s what I keep telling myself. Eventually it is going to stick and I might actually believe it. Right now, it’s become a mantra for why I deserve a good couch.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I had an 8 AM dentist appointment this week and it was probably one of the highlights of my week. My dental hygienist only sees me twice a year, but every time she leans back my chair to get to work, she asks me about something I told her I was going to do at my previous visit. This week was “how did grown-up camp go?” She remembered from my last visit in February that I was going to go to Camp Wildling. She’s fantastic. She always tells me that I’m doing a great job at flossing. At the end, the dentist comes over and he also asks me follow up questions from my last visit. On this visit, he told me that my teeth are a ten out of ten. I left the dentist’s office with clean teeth and a hop in my step. All of that nightly flossing and taking care of my teeth stuff seems to be paying off.

Then I opened my email to see a new email from Macy’s furniture department and I yelled out “We’re getting our new couch!”

We are not getting our new couch. Once I actually read the email, I found out that we have a new estimated delivery date of 11/30/2021. Yes, that says November thirtieth. I think what really rubbed me the wrong way was in the email, they said “Thank you for your recent furniture order.” as if we bought the couch last week and not six months ago. No one likes the current seating situation in the living room. The animals walk over to where I’m sitting in the chair I bought to go with my desk and they just stare up. The cat was so desperate to lay on some part of my body the other day that he flopped down on my feet. Josephine just sighs heavily before stretching out on the floor next to me. The Cabbage was on vacation with their mom last week and the first thing they asked when we picked them up was if the new couch had arrived. They didn’t even really sit that much on the old couch and they are tired of this seating situation.

We have a futon in the basement that (on top of the futon mattress) Michael has placed an actual mattress. That’s where he sleeps when the Cabbage is with us. I bought a simple fold up bed frame to put the mattress on so that we can haul the futon up to the living room. My friend Sarah asked me if I wanted to borrow her son’s bean bag chairs. I am not, but I told her that I might as well because we’ll already be sitting on a futon like it’s 1996. All I need now is a stinky bong for the coffee table and a lava lamp. I know that 90s fashion is making a comeback. Anthropologie just sent me an advertisement for sweater vests, but recreating my college day living room decor is too much.

I know what you’re thinking. Where is the gratitude in this story?

Three days a week, I walk Josephine up to Tower Park (also known as Snack Park because that’s where she finds all the good snacks) where we walk the whole loop of the park. There are regulars who walk there that know the two of us by name and we greet each other every morning. There are also regulars who sleep in this park. In the last few months, I have noticed the number of homeless sleeping in this park has increased. One man has even attempted to build a cardboard house in the baseball stands. I’ve taken to carrying granola bars with me to leave discretely next to a sleeping person. One morning a few weeks ago, Josephine and I arrived at the park just as a city park’s ranger was clearing people out. One by one, they filled up their carts or bags with their belongings while Josephine and I walked the park. At the end of this, Josephine and I had a place to go. The park people did not, though I believe that they should be allowed to sleep in that park because they have very little options. Their homelessness is not about being unable to find a job. It is about mental instability and addictions. It is about once having a stable life and then losing a job and or having huge medical bills and then finding themselves suddenly homeless without any know how to pull themselves out of homelessness.

So my couch problem is a problem of privilege and in the wake of what I just told you about the homeless in the park, a bit of a disgusting problem to complain about. I am grateful for my current uncomfortable seating situation.

THAT'S SOMETHING

Morning

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 1 like

Michael and I bought a new couch. Really, I guess I should say that we are in the process of buying a new couch. IKEA was out of the arms and chase section of the couch we wanted. Now that I think about it, I have to a pause and ask "what the fuck, IKEA?" We were able to buy the two seater section, legs, and all of the covers, but no arms or chaise. I get that they'd be out of the chaise because the couch is modular, but ARMS?!? I went back on Sunday and got the arms. Michael will go after work on Tuesday and get the chaise. I put all of the pieces we have for the couch together yesterday, with the exception of attaching the right arm because that's where the chaise section goes. My knuckles are scraped and bloody from putting the covers on the arms and I have a paper cut from the cardboard box that stretches all the way across my forearm. We sat on half a couch last night. 

While we were in IKEA trying to decide on which couch to buy, I looked at Michael and said "we're buying a couch together." He thought about it and then nodded. "We are buying a couch together." I feel like that's even more serious than that time he bought a scooter.  We're taking my home and turning it into our home, which is more than just cleaning out a couple of drawers in my dresser so he'll have room to put his socks and underwear. Though, I am getting those drawers back because we also bought Michael a new bed with large storage drawers under it. When he opened up the drawers on my side of the dresser, which are crammed full, he asked me "how long have they been like this?!" I looked at him out of the side of my eye and said "since you moved in." 

I'm still guiltily surprised at how easy it was for me to stretch out into this space after Chris died. I had been so careful and consistent in getting rid of clothes so that the clothes I kept fit neatly into my half of the dresser. It is not that I stopped cleaning out old clothes. I just got less selective in the things I tossed even after I moved back into just the three drawers. I stretched out, spread out and then had to real it all back in. Things that didn't get tossed during the shrink back phase suddenly found new homes stuffed into nooks and crannies. There have been times when I have felt overwhelmed by confining myself back into my old space because it doesn't fit the way it did before. My house went from all mine, quiet and orderly to Our house, noisy and just on the brink of exploding into chaos. Containing the clutter is an endless task. I throw out mail and neatly stack the things Michael ends up dumping onto the table daily.

And there have been so many bitten tongues. "Can't you see I eat my breakfast there every morning?" "How many cups do you need in the living room?!" "You really think it's a good idea to put knives, pointy side up in the dish drainer?" These are all things I have thought and not said out loud because I recognize the bitchy nagging sound of those words. But there have been moments where I've felt myself snapping and on the verge of yelling "OUT! GET OUT!" We can be together and not live together right? Instead of snapping, I notice how hard he's trying. I notice that he's doing his best and that he has spent a long time living in this space on my terms. I am no longer making this space mine. We are making this space ours. There is no moving backwards now. We've bought a couch and in order to split that couch up, we'd have to buy another pair of couch arms. 

And who knows when IKEA's getting more of those.