Goodbye Red Microsuede Couch

And, yes, please sing that to the tune of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I know a thing is just a thing as they say but what happens (wha happen? A nod to one of my favorite Fred Willard characters) when that “thing” has been with you longer than your boyfriend, dog or plantar’s wort?

While many people are quick to go out and buy the newest things, I pride myself on holding onto something as long as possible and maintaining it as best as I can. Perhaps it’s my attempt at being eco-friendly, nostalgic or just plain cheap. My autumn bronze pearl Infiniti G20t is of legal drinking age (Trixie is 21), my green monogrammed “brooke” bag with polka dot ribbons on the handles is 35 years old and my red microsuede sofa sleeper was 18 years old...WAS.

And she left us kicking and screaming, too. Or more like she didn’t want to leave us, like a baby that just keeps growing inside a womb past their due date that they turn into a gigantic thirteen pound ten ounces baby that requires Momma to get a cesarian, stitches and Xanax. My failed attempt at purchasing a new pink couch that was such a great discount at Wayfair proved to be a runaround, a four month long delay and a blind date that never showed up and if they did, would insist on going Dutch. The replacement couch to said pink couch was its light grey cousin which arrived as the classic the textbook example of you get what you pay for. My momma and I boxed it back up and got it out of the house quicker than you can say “overnight delivery”. The last couch that we ended up on (upon? Once Upon a Mattress? What?) was from Raymour and Flannigan, one of the last places I said I’d ever get a couch because I thought it would be just so basic. The new couch couldn’t be basic because The Red Microsuede Couch was anything but. It had soul. It had history. It had a sofa sleeper...with a bent frame.

See, we purchased the red microsuede couch just days before my college graduation before I was moving in with my BFF B into my first big girl apartment in Brooklyn and it was one of the first large purchases where the decision was all mine. We went to Macy’s furniture outlet because, if you haven’t guessed by now, I love a good deal. My momma and my cousin were with me and we browsed mattresses because we were initially in the market for a bed. But, hear me out, my friend B and my apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn was oh so cool - equipped with a view of the Empire State Building from our bathtub, a roof top that was to die for (and to get sunburned on) but it had bedrooms that were skinny and long like a bowling alley. So, my cousin, being the genius that she is (and I know that sounds facetious but would a girl who keeps a couch for 18 years be the facetious type?) said, “Why don’t you just get a sofa sleeper instead of a bed? That way, during the day you can fold it up and your room won’t be all bed and you won’t feel so crammed.” Genius, I tell ya.

Hiding in the corner like the love child of “Baby” (Frances Houseman) and Little Red Riding Hood, there was the most vibrant, softest, squishiest couch you ever saw. And, she was a full size sofa sleeper. AND SHE WAS ON SALE. So, she was sold before I even opened the bed and noticed that the frame was bent ever so slightly. I thought, “Oh no big deal about this slightly bent frame.” Clearly, I hadn’t experienced back aches and nerve pain from a herniated disc...yet.

So, after opening a Macy’s credit card for even deeper savings, she was scheduled for delivery to my Brooklyn apartment a week later. My aunt bought me super cute Tommy Hilfiger sheets covered in pink and yellow gerbera daisies. So many family members had their hand in my red microsuede couch, see? She had an emotional attachment before I even slept with her - on her.

That couch was with me the first year out of college, one of the hardest years of my life. Not working, then working below minimum wage, then working two or three jobs below minimum wage (basically living the American Dream) and definitely not doing what my soul or my college education set me up to do - theatre. I had to quickly learn the school of hard knocks, pay incredibly high rent and climb four flights of stairs every time I came “home”. But, I had the couch to return to every night to lay on, to hug and cry into as a comforting red couch then transform into a bed at night. At the end of that year, the sleeper part of the sofa started becoming a little (okay a LOT) uncomfortable so I just started sleeping on her like a regular couch. My BFF and I decided we were better as BFF’s than roommates and it was time for me to move, again.

I lucked out on an apartment around the corner from my first apartment that was huge and had a bedroom the size of bedrooms back home so I said, “Red Microsuede Couch, you’ll do what you were destined to do. Be a couch. And, when overnight guests come over they’ll have a place to stay.” And, that red microsuede couch proved a fun place for many hangouts, parties and even an occasional overnight guest including my dad. That couch stuck with me through a bed bug scare (which luckily didn’t touch her) and a lot of sanitizing chemicals and a high heat steam cleaner “just to be extra safe.” She stuck with me throughout many horrible romantic (or unromantic) relationships. She was there to make a fun girly trio for slumber party nights with my roommate and I.

So, it was a no brainer that when it was time for me to move from Brooklyn to Jersey, she would come. And, I really had no choice because I didn’t have money after the downpayment on the house to afford anything else, especially not a new couch. In Jersey, she was with me through a leaky roof a week after moving in, more bad relationships and a lot of job uncertainty. But, she was also the first thing I saw when I walked in the door to greet me after I shot my first co-star role, our rescue dogs to help them feel welcome in their furever home and my now boyfriend who is definitely my soulmate (even though I really think my dog and this couch are also my soulmates, clearly.)

Red microsuede couch was the place where my dad and my beloved late dog Kibbles had boys only slumber parties during the Christmas holiday. Red microsuede couch was the place where all of our rescue dogs would scratch and make a nest to have prime viewing of my yoga sessions. Red microsuede couch was the place that played a funny joke on my friend Big Daddy and her then husband who came to stay the night - when she was opened, the mattress flung out mouse poop like confetti. You think that would have tipped me off to get rid of her. But, no. I just did what I always did, sprinkled her with some baking soda, whipped out my trusty steam cleaner and told her that she was looking as red and microsuedey as ever.

It wasn’t until the pandemic that a wild hare crawled up my booty and I said, “Red Microsuede Couch (now covered with grey chevron sofa cover) you just don’t go with the rest of the house anymore, girl. You feel big and heavy and you need a greener pasture.” I tried my darndest to find her a good home on all of the “take my free stuff” sites. I told Red Microsuede Couch not to worry, that all those Facebook Marketplace people who stood us up didn’t deserve her. That it would just take time but we would find her the perfect home. But I literally just couldn’t give her away.

Until one day when I got a random email from Wayfair that the new oh so cheap couch was finally going to arrive in two days. I was on set and it was trash night so I texted my Momma in a panic. When I arrived home later that night, I was greeted by Red Microsuede Couch...on the street. I wanted to take a photo of her. I wanted to go sit on her. I wanted to hug her goodbye. But, all I did was took a big yogic breath, moved forward and opened the door to my echoey empty feeling living room. The dogs and Momma were camping out on blankets on the floor waiting for me. Just because Red Microsuede Couch was gone, the living room wasn’t really empty.

I looked at her from my bedroom window sitting dutifully and patiently on the street and prayed someone would come by, see her beauty and put her in their pickup truck to take her home. But, because we live in Jersey and most people don’t have Ford F150’s, Red Microsuede Couch stayed on the sidewalk, awaiting her fate. At about 10:08 pm, I heard the ominous sound of the trash truck rounding the corner. I debated putting in ear plugs and shutting my blinds. But, I owed it to her to watch her as the trash man yanked her booty cushions off and pulled her (I don’t know how one man single handily pulled a 150 pound couch) into the trash truck’s jaws. The truck then ate her cushions like after dinner mints. I cried. Then I laughed at myself for crying. Then I told myself all the good memories, all the heavier memories and most of the dog hair would live forever in my heart and I went online and tracked the Wayfair couch shipment.

Harry, Kibbles and Red Microsuede Couch singing Don’t Stop Believin’, most likely.

Goodbye Red Microsuede Couch. Ya did good.