We Really Tried

Today we were blessed with new living room furniture.  It has been a while coming and we really needed it (more on that in a minute) so Peter Pan and I were extremely excited.  Our old sofa/sectional was too big for our room.  It always had been and we should have returned it as soon as we bought it, however we don't really think through problems that way.   In any case it was too big and now it has become sort of stinky and stained.  I could get it clean if I really scrubbed it, but to be honest it was sort of an eyesore.  It also wasn't really comfortable.  Even the recliner was a bit bumpy.  I think the killer moment was when poor Fenway had her urinary tract infection and, you guessed it, peed all over it.  I never really could get it back to normal after that.  Since we are getting new floors (another story and thank you broken dishwasher!) we decided it was time to get rid of our old furniture.

Peter Pan called the Salvation Army and made an appointment for them to come and get the old sofa.  I couldn't wait to get home from school to see my empty room, ready for new furniture.  I arrived home, having spent my day on the coldest and wettest field trip in the history of Kindergarten, to see Belle sitting on our old sofa reading.  "What are you doing?' I exclaimed.  "Reading" she answered back sarcastically not realizing that the sofa was supposed to be gone.  "I know that, but why are you on the sofa?"  Now she was totally confused and answered with something about where else should she sit.  Through this whole conversation there was no sign of Peter Pnn.  I tried (sort of lamely) to explain to Belle that I was trying to figure out the sofa situation and set off in search of Peter Pan.

He was in bed (which was where I wanted to be, I was freezing!)  "I tripped on your shoe when I was bringing the laundry up.  I hurt my back."  So it was my fault, whatever, I asked about the sofa.  "Oh, yeah, the Salvation Army came and they won't take it."  Huh?  Won't take a free sofa.  Nope, it had too many stains.  In other words my sofa was too disgusting for even the Salvation Army to take it.  As we were talking the furniture store called to confirm our delivery.  "No, no, no.  You can't bring it tomorrow.  Yes, I know we scheduled it, but we have had an emergency.  We'll reschedule," was my sort of paniced response.  Peter Pan asked why I said we had an emergency and I told him it  was the first thing that popped into my head and I just sort of blurted it out.  So we were back to square one.

Yesterday he called ReStore and set up a pick up for our old sofa.  We were a little anxious.  Would they take it?   Would it be too dirty?  This morning they called and unfortunately there were no drivers available.  They wanted to know if we could bring it down.  Well sure, but will you take it.  Turns out that NO they don't want our yucky sofa either.  So Peter Pan and I had to make 2 trips to the dump to get rid of the sofa.  This really bothered me because with a little TLC it could have been usable. 

It turns out we were not the only sofa pitchers today.  There were several people at the dump discarding sofas and some of them looked pretty good (the sofas I mean).  I was really bothered now.  Americans waste a lot of stuff.  It is a shame.  I just want to state for the record that we really did try to find a new home for our old sofa.  Not hard enough I guess.

The best part of the story:  while we were driving to the dump the second time Peter Pan says (and I am not making this up), "This is sort of fun, like we are on a date!"  Are you kidding me?  The dump?  No, it isn't really sort of fun.  No, this in no way qualifies as a date!   Peter Pan needs some retraining!  In any case, our new sofa, love seat and chair arrived this afternoon and although we had to do some rearranging our living room looks great.  Now if we can just keep the dogs off of them.....