RIP- Oh Great Comforters of Mine. . .

This week I said goodbye to two great friends who have been in my life for at least 13 years. I did not mourn or weep, but crazily stood in my driveway taking pictures of my "friends" on their way to the nearest garbage dump.

Meet my old green couches. . .




I first met these couches over 13 years ago in the apartment of my brother Tim in North Royalton. He was engaged to be married to Anita, and they were fixing up their place with some new furniture. I am certain that I crashed on those couches at least a couple of times in the Cleveland area after a few nights out.

My love affair with them continued as the couches journeyed with Tim and Ni to Chicago where I can remember Chris and I ridding the couches of all their cushions and creating a makeshift cozy bed on a number of visits to Chi-town. These green bearers of comfort also resided in New Jersey temporarily with Tim and Ni before they moved back home to Ohio.

As the couches began to wear, Tim and Ni moved on, but being young-- and low on cash-- I gleefully welcomed the green comforts into my home in Cleveland. We felt they were an upgrade to the hand-me-downs from mom and dad that we were using. The boys especially loved to play with the couch cushions as they were removable and they could stack them and jump on them.

But then, we moved to Wisconsin and the wear was beginning to show on these elderly couches. They were cloth, so all old markers or crayon stains were visible and impossible to get rid of. And, then slowly-- little tears begin to creep onto the top of the couches. In desperation, I even tried to sew the tears back together with some terribly weak thread, but to no avail- the couches were dying, and my slipshod stitches could not stop their demise.

We delegated the couches to the basement and bought new ones. Our mantra became "Go to the basement and jump on those couches, boys. No one cares about those." And they did.

For over two years those couches have sat in the basement enduring abuse after abuse. I watch tiny holes in the fabric lead to gaping wounds where the stuffing began to fall. Then, even that was not enough, the stuffing gave way to the foam that was hiding underneath it. Then, the last few months, we sunk to an all time low, where even the foam was removed, and only the wooden particle board remained. Stripped to the bone.

It was time to say goodbye. I called the local garbage man and explained the death of my furniture. We decided to keep the cushions for what may be years of fun for the boys (and perhaps years of dangerous stunts.)

So on Monday, the men came to pick the couches up. Gingerly, the couches were tossed into the back of a truck and instantly crushed.

RIP- Green couches.