CUE MUSIC: "Gomi Day" by Shonen Knife
Last night I was finally able to replace the scary gross old couch that had been sitting on our porch for the past 3 years. This has been a personal goal for the past 8 months, ever since I had a coughing fit while sitting on the couch, conversing with a friend who gesticulated wildly, beating clouds of decomposing cushion foam into the air. Anyway, yesterday evening my girlfriend came over and used a Jedi mind trick,
HER: ”You are coming to my place tonight.”
ME: ”I am going to your place tonight.”
We get into her car and not two blocks from my place
I spy a large black vinyl couch set out with the garbage cans. If I had realized it was
bulk trash day I would have been trawling all afternoon for a new couch.
ME: ”Hey, lookit that couch! We need a new couch for the porch.”
HER: ”Oh? I didn’t see it. But you need a new couch for the porch. That thing is gross and I refuse to sit on it.”
We circle the block and I get out at the
house to round up a posse to claim the couch. Two of the housemates accompany me to reconnoiter, we all sit down and appraise the couch: it is nicer and more comfortable than our present couch. My girlfriend walks up and takes a seat on what will soon be our couch,
HER: “You may bear my palanquin back to the palace.”
SOMEONE: “Your Jedi mind trick won’t work on me.”
She gets up and helps us portage the couch back to the porch. Aaron, one of the housemates, insists on disposing our old couch “
the proper way”: leaving it in the very place we found the new couch. After a little groaning, that old couch is disposed of properly.
Legal Note: in many urban areas, it is considered an eyesore to have a couch on the porch of a house. This offence is punishable by a citation, fine, and loss of couch.