The Super-Mega Sofa Challenge……and the Company of Good Friends

“So a computer scientist, an architect, and a mathematician were trying to move a couch……..”

This could be the start of a great comedy bit, right?  But the couch story is real….and it wasn’t all that funny.

Josh moved last weekend to an off-campus and unfurnished house rental and in an attempt to have a place to rest his rear-end, he had appealed to his family for second-hand goods.

Furnishing your first place and making a house into a home, even with a hodge-podge of hand-me-downs, is exciting stuff.  And since I am a big fan of anything recycled, repurposed, salvaged, or free, I was super happy when the cousins and aunties responded to Josh’s request…….and when Auntie Karen offered her comfy blue plush sofa with the reclining leg rests.

Now Karen had warned that the couch was ridiculously heavy and difficult to move.  This couch, it seems, refused to be tamed and had been the subject of at least one or two furniture moving battle-stories.

But we weren’t worried.  We had the A-Team.  There was Joe, a master mover, and me, a master overseer…….plus three youthful and fit men, each with at least two-thirds of a college education.  Muscles and smarts……that couch would submit!

First, Joe joined our math major and our comp-sci major in removing the sofa from its old home…..by way of sheer brute force.  A winding stairwell had to be negotiated with the sofa upended vertically.  It was ugly work, but everyone avoided the need for hernia surgery.  Secretly, I assessed Joe for cardiac symptoms…..more than once.

Then upon arrival at the new house, our architecture student shook his head with doubt.  “It’s not going to fit,” he said with a level of confidence that raised my blood pressure a few points.  “Who has the tape measure?”  Within seconds, basic math confirmed that entry via the front door was impossible.

The boys considered the rear entrance, accessible only by a long and narrow, railed walkway.  The back door would need to be removed from its hinges, of course, and there would be a few more steps to negotiate.

My suggestion, of course, was returning the demon couch to the U-Haul.  I envisioned a ride directly to the nearest Good Will, where after unloading (or dumping) it onto a wide-open parking lot, that monstrosity would be someone else’s problem.

But the optimistic undergrads had both a level of determination and a sense of humor that I sorely lacked.

It took nearly 45 minutes.  Maneuvering that long railed walkway was slow-going and required pivoting and rolling that three or four hundred pound behemoth. Success was achieved through sheer will, sweat, and a touch of mathematics, architecture and physics.  And against all odds (mathematical and other), the sofa made it into Josh’s living room. In spite of their heavy breathing, the young folks never stopped smiling.

Without that company of friends, that monster sofa would not have made it.  Without their upbeat attitude, Joe and I would have bid that sofa adieu and loaned Josh a few metal folding chairs.

But our young men understood that a place of your own is something special and is worth fighting for……even if that means fighting against a blue plush sofa!

And the sofa….once inside……immediately lost all hints of insidiousness and it became, once again, a nice comfy couch that everyone can love and enjoy.  And I truly hope that the sofa helps make that rental house into a home for Josh and his friends over the next year.  Because that house is where that sofa will stay……….forever.  Cause when this rental period is over, I am donating that goliath to the next group of renters.

And if they don’t want it, we will just have to destroy it.

“So a computer scientist, an architect, and a mathematician walk into a bar………”

Oh, wait.  That’s not our college students…..that’s me and Joe as soon as we left.

 

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So what really make a house a home?  Is it the right furniture arrangement?  Is it the company of good friends?   Or is it maybe a blue plush sofa with reclining leg rests?

Feel free to call Josh and schedule a visit to find out!  

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