I sat down to wallow in my sorrows as I ate a bowl of increasingly soggy rice krispies, when suddenly something outside the window caught my eye. A man outside was carrying a small couch to the dumpster. I called Rex over, and we watched him carry it across the parking lot and set it right next to the dumpster. He pulled off the tan cushion and actually threw that INTO the dumpster. This couch was definitely abandoned. We gave each other a "oh-wow-it's-free-furniture!" look and said, "Let's go!"
We raced down to the dumpster to look at our prize. It wasn't really a couch, but it wasn't really a chair either. If a chair and a couch had a baby, it would have been this thing. I think sophisticated people would call it a "chaise lounge." It's the kind of thing that Egyptian princes used to lounge on while getting grapes fed to them. You get the idea. Anyway, the base was a beautiful chocolate brown leather that looked as if it were made to match our bed frame. The cushion was a tan suede that had a rip in the back side, but I would easily be able to sew that up. The couch/chair/lounge was in almost perfect condition, and to think someone was going to throw it away. GASP! We would rescue it.
Rex grabbed the base of the couch and I pulled the long cushion out of the dumpster. I picked off a sticky strawberry sucker stick that had gotten stuck to it (ew), but I didn't show Rex for fear he would say that the new prized furniture was too dirty and we couldn't keep it. OBVIOUSLY I was going to wash it before it assumed a place of permanence in our apartment. Still, I wish the man hadn't thrown the cushion in with all of the trash. That was kid of gross.
I really should have left the whole thing in the dumpster. The couch has been nothing but bad luck since we lugged it up the stairs to our apartment. First off, it didn't fit in the spot that I had planned for it on the right wall of our bedroom. Getting creative, I tried to fit it under our bedroom window so that I could lie on it and read books, but when Rex tried to move our bookshelf the entire bookshelf BROKE and books flew everywhere. Super. So after a half hour of repairing our bookshelf and putting the books back on, we still didn't have a home for our couch.
I was ready to throw it back in the dumpster when Rex suggested, "Why don't we put it on the porch?" Hmmmm... I considered the possibility. It would be really nice to have a comfy couch on the porch, but it wasn't really made to be "outdoor furniture." I relayed this concern to Rex, and he challenged me to think of the last time that it rained here. That's a very good point. We do live in the desert. I think I can count on one hand the number of times it has rained here since we moved in almost a year ago. People keep all sorts of water-unfriendly things on their porches. Treadmills, washers and dryers, etc. It really just doesn't rain. I said that it was a good idea, and we moved the couch to the porch. It actually matches the paint job on our porch quite well, and I had some fun sitting on it and reading outside today. I was just starting to think that this whole "free couch" thing was going to work out.
Elvis loves the couch. I'm pretty sure he thinks we got it just for him. I've tried to tell him not to pee on it, and for the most part he's paid attention. His one slip-up came at about lunchtime today, when he jumped up onto the back of the couch, lifted his leg, and peed THROUGH THE WINDOW SCREEN into our living room. Ahhhhhhhh! So yes, technically he followed the "no peeing on the couch rule," but now he peed in our living room. Gross. Then he proceeded to lick the window screen as if I had sprinkled it with lemonade. Dogs are weird.
I decided to leave the couch alone for a while, as it has caused more headaches than joy. You would not believe what happened when I came back inside. Would you like to guess? Go ahead - guess.
It started RAINING. We had just decided to keep the couch outside based on the fact that it NEVER rains here, and suddenly we're in a downpour. There are small rivers running through the parking lot. I could get a canoe and sail to the Strip. My poor new couch! I ran outside to cover it with a trash bag, but a trash bag didn't cover the whole thing so I laid on the parts that were still exposed so that I could shield the leather and suede from the torrents of destructive rain. This worked for a few minutes until Rex looked out the window and saw me curled around the couch like a mother hen protecting her eggs. "Christine, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he inquired, alarmed. I told him that I was protecting our new couch (duh). He replied with, "We got that out of the GARBAGE. We didn't even pay anything for it! We can just throw it away if it gets ruined. Come inside and stop getting soaked for a piece of trash!"
My poor baby couch. It is so comfy. I want to keep it so badly. I could even sleep on it on cool summer nights (there are no bugs here, so it would be perfect). It seems like it's one piece of bad luck after another with this "couch of doom," though, so we'll see what happens with it. At the very least, it made for a more exciting Saturday than I had planned!
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