1/14/2004

The Thrift Store people came and took our well-traveled Sofabed away. She put up a pretty good fight before they finally got it into the truck.

Sofa started her life brown, plaid and synthetic. She lived in Leo's aunt and uncle's rec room in Washington, DC. That was 30 years ago. Eventually, she left home and stayed in the basement over at Leo's folks place. When Leo and I graduated college and he got a job in Wilmington, DE and I tagged along, his parents gave us Sofa along with lots of other furniture and household goods, some of which we still have. It was a big step up from our previous digs which were all futons and stereo equipment and things that were found in alleys on the south side of Chicago.

A couple of years later I got into graduate school out here and Leo got a job and the movers came and hauled Sofa out of Delaware and off to California. The movers even hauled her up the stairs to our 2nd floor apartment and on to a nice green shag carpet that suited her, really. She sat in the sun after most of a lifetime in shadowy places. She began to disintegrate. I recovered her off-white. She seemed fresh and new.

Soon, we got married. We bought a house. Sofa moved with us. We got a cat. We had 2 children. We had many houseguests. And Sofa was there.

Eight years passed. We decided to add on to the house. We moved Sofa next door. I decided to recover her again as she had gotten threadbare and stained. So I bought her some fancy new clothes and set about dressing her.

Then she wouldn't fit down the hallway into the family room. And she wouldn't fit through the backyard gate. We contemplated various Herculean moving tactics to hoist her over the garage.

Sofa lived in the garage for a couple of months while we discussed her fate. And decided it was time for her to go. It was time for her to start off on another new adventure.

Good travels, Sofabed! I hope that someone manages to recover your last cushions with that fabric I tucked in.

The new sofabed comes from IKEA this afternoon. I'm glad that Sofa wasn't here to see it.

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