Goodbye Futon, Hello Comfy Curb Couch
Eight years ago, when my husband and I got married, we received generous amounts of Bay gift cards which we amalgamated to buy a chocolate-brown, faux-suede futon, which has since served as our living room sofa. I was so excited by its acquisition that I made an animated flash cartoon to commemorate the occasion (I was into flash animation back then). The back folded down to become a bed for guests, resting on hefty metal legs which jutted out from behind while the futon was in couch mode and prevented the furniture from sitting flush against the wall. Many a toe was stubbed on those metallic monstrosities.
We loved our futon and it traveled with us to three different homes. It hosted quite a few parties in our walk-up apartment. In our condo, it witnessed my son, William, grow from an infant into a toddler. In our house, it saw William and his sister Jadzia grow into awesome children, though perhaps not so awesome if you’re a bouncy piece of furniture. Yes, our chocolate futon got a lot of abuse in recent years. When we brought Worf home as a puppy, he made a den under it, digging its stuffing out from underneath. It has become one of my daughter’s favourite places to pee (ranking above the toilet and slightly behind my husband’s desk chair). As a result, it has developed a not-too-pleasant odor. Eventually the futon gave up, resolving to remain in sleep mode for the rest of its days. Any attempts to lift the back only resulted in a sudden jolt backwards while attempting to comfortably watch Netflix on a week night.
Still we resolved to keep our ailing futon, only replacing it with a new couch when my daughter got over her pee-where-I-may phase, which has seen years instead of months. On Sunday night, the night before junk day, I was walking Worf around the block. Neighbours were putting out old furniture to be picked up by garbage collectors. It was then I noticed a comfy-looking couch on somebody’s curb.
I told my husband who, under cover of darkness, lifted the couch onto our car and drove it home where it replaced our poor, dilapidated, futon. The curb-couch seems brand new, comfortable, and pleasantly does not smell of urine. Instead, it has the subtle odor of someone else’s house, a house kept so clean as to avoid picking up very much odor at all. And yet the smell is there, as though the couch is still homesick for its old life, as though it fears the Lego cyclone that is our basement. I’d be fearful too, were I a piece of furnishing which found itself in the Filipowicz house.
