Couching My Emotions in Cowhide

We all make bad decisions. Some of them, like the choice to eat too much fiber on any given day can make us very uncomfortable for a few hours. Other choices, like the decision to get a giant liger tattoo, can haunt us until the day we die.

Ten years ago I made a bad decision that plagued me until today. I was a newlywed with a real job for the first time. We were moving into a new apartment that had two (count them, two!) bedrooms in addition to a kitchen I couldn't span with my arms, a fabulous yellow bathroom, a window unit air conditioner and a second floor location that made us all but oblivious to the drug deals taking place in the parking lot. I needed some furnishings worthy of this palace. We left behind our spraypainted coffee table  and couch (which had been left for us by the previous occupant) in our college apartment and we went on a furniture shopping adventure. At the end of the day, we had a coffee table, two end tables and a sofa and loveseat.

Once the loot was in our apartment, I immediately began to feel buyer's remorse. I told myself that this is what happens when engineers try to decorate and that our choices would grow on me. Years passed and the only thing that grew was my hatred for my furniture. But for nothing did I feel more hatred than for this blue couch.

When we moved to our first house, it looked even worse. When Chris replaced our carpet with bamboo, the couch became even more unbearably ugly. I used the couch as a reminder that I made the decision to stay at home with my kids for now and I had plans to replace it as soon as I returned to work next year. I thought I was the only one bothered by this upholstered monstrosity.

This was not so. Last month an anonymous benefactor let me know that my couch was hideous to all involved and expressed a desire to never see it again. This expression was no doubt a sincere one because it was accompanied by a donation to be used towards a new sofa.

And that is why, as I am writing this post, I am enjoying the smell of beautiful leather and why my peripheral vision is no longer picking up a blue blob.

Isn't it fabulous?

Now my only problem is that everything else in the room was purchased to make the blue couch look less hideous. Most of it does nothing to highlight this piece of sittable art. I am particularly sad about the throw pillows, which don't work as well as I had hoped, but which I love. Oh well! I could throw out everything else and just live with this couch. I would be happy.