There’s a sofa in the hallway.
Jessica Burgess
Clearly Unedited
It hulks there, menacingly, blocking the way to the bathroom. Each
night, in my 3 a.m. scramble to pee, I come perilously close to breaking
my leg. If there were someone else to blame for this, I would jump at
the chance. But the sofa’s hallway presence is my own fault.
See, a few months ago, this guy (who is sort of like my roommate except
we sleep in the same bed) and I decided to buy a house because I was
eager to make things as complicated as possible for when he dumps me.
Before we moved in to our new place, I was bursting with plans. “I’m
gonna VIOLATE Home Depot,” I insisted. “I’m gonna TEAR UP Lowe’s.”
Paint. New floors. Decks. Concrete stain. If it was part of the Home, I
was going to Improve it.
What I didn’t realize was that after packing up all our belongings,
giving a mover $700 to sit on his butt for eight hours, paying 9
gazillion dollars in unexpected ripoffs — er, I mean closing costs — and
unpacking and arranging everything, I basically was more eager for the
sweet release of death than I was to start wallpapering.
Eventually, though, I decided maybe I could handle installing a new
floor in the study. I enlisted a friend to help. Step 1 was to shove the
sofa into the hall. There were many more steps after that, including
Step 4,170: Go back to Home Depot and buy another $200 worth of flooring
because you are too dumb to figure out the square footage of a
10-by-11-foot room.
When we finished, I couldn’t bear to sit in an upright position, let
alone lift a sofa. So I decided to leave it “until tomorrow.” But as you
probably know, tomorrow never comes. It has been a week, and I still
can’t muster up any furniture-hefting energy.
The sofa is still there, on its side, laughing softly.
It really makes me want to throw up. And I would, but the sofa’s
blocking my way to the toilet.
If you know any big, strong furniture movers who like to get paid in
beer and insults, contact Jessica at jburgess@QuickDFW.com.
