House of Burgess

As 80’s heavy metal band Cinderella once put it: “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
I doubt he was talking about living room seating, but I feel lead singer Tom Keifer’s pain.
When my girlfriend Ash and I packed up all our earthly belongings in our Indiana abode before making the trek to Ukiah, we considered whether or not to bring the sturdy brown couch that had previously been a staple of our living room for years along for the ride. The decision was made considerably more difficult based the amount of history the small hide-a-bed sofa and I have. I still have pictures of my brother Chris and I sitting and playing on it that date back to my earliest concious memories as a child.
Before loading the rented U-Haul for the trip, I had thought I could make it work. My brother and I have been lucky enough to inherent our father’s abnormally large bicep muscles, which I affectionately call “The Burgess Bulge”. I had counted on my twin pythons to be enough to transport the piece of furniture, but as we hauled one box after another into the waiting vehicle, it became clear it would take more than my matching set of guns to do the job.
Ash and I aren’t miniscule people, but we are by no means massive either. The prospect of the two of us actually hoisting the monstrisity up a flight of stairs by ourselves without crushing one or both of us was slight enough that we decided to abandon the idea altogether. With a pang of sadness, I donated the couch to my brother, who now has it guarding the front door of his home in Bloomington.
Ash and I finished packing and left town with the promise that I would procure new seating as soon as we arrived in our new apartment.
One thing led to another and four months later, we were still using a pair of deck chairs as our only living room chairs.
For the record, this wasn’t for lack of trying.
I shopped around at nearly every local furniture store, looking for something that was anywhere near my price range. Finding almost nothing decent even approaching less that $500, I began to loose hope that we would ever own anything approaching comfortable to sit on.
“I’ve been to people’s houses that didn’t have very much money and they seem to have couches,” I thought. “Why can’t we?”
This thankfully temporary solution was brought to a head when, over the Christmas holiday, one of the chairs finally buckled from overuse.
The only thing sadder than only having two deck chairs for two people’s communal seating needs is having one.
With that in mind, I stopped procrastinating and hastily joined the local Freecycle group, which I had meant to do months earlier. After being accepted, I posted my desperate need for a couch that “didn’t smell weird or have any unsightly stains.” Almost immediately I recieved almost half-a-dozen responses to my inquiry from friendly, willing participants.
“Why, oh why didn’t I think of this before?” I thought as I leafed through the sudden deluge of e-mails.
After surveying our options, Ash and I settled on a four-decades-old hide-a-bed sofa that the lovely couple who offered it to us characterized as “dark brown, early American style.”
Luckily, by this time I actually knew people in the area and my friends and coworkers Ben, Richard and MacLeod used their significantly stronger arm muscles to help me move the couch while I stood back and provided moral support.
Since that day, my living room has been much more comfortable. Taking a small nap on our couch is considerably easier and decidedly more inviting than having a metal bar sticking in your side as you sit slumped over like you’ve been hit by a sniper.
So now I’m committed to spreading the gospel of Freecycle. I love not paying for stuff I want and getting things I want for “free ninety-nine” will always appeal to me.
Now, the real question is, does anyone have any bookshelves I can have?
For real. Get at me about that.