Shhh...I'm Listening to the Furniture

I'm taking the week off from blogging. I know you'll miss me, but in the meantime I've got some AWESOME guest bloggers to help fill the days. Actually, they're more like VIBs, Very-Important Bloggers. They're really fantastic. Maybe even more fantastic than me. I know that's saying a lot, but I don't like to lie to you guys.

Today's VIB is the coolest cat I read, The Annoyed Army Wife. Her posts never fail to make me laugh. Plus, she convinced me to hire a cleaner (or a maid for those you less PC peeps). On a way more excited note, I'll get to meet her at Bloggy Boot Camp! Maybe some of her coolness will rub off on me :)

-Mrs. Mootz

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When Mrs. Mootz asked for volunteers to guest blog for her I jumped at the chance. She’s one of my favorites, like when I see a new post from her sitting in my reader queue I drop everything to read it. Of course, when you want to impress someone and admire them, it always raises the stakes! I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out what in the world I was going to blog about.

Let me introduce myself for those you who don’t know me. I call myself The Annoyed Army Wife, and I’m married to an Army physician on his first deployment to Afghanistan. We’ve been married for just under 3 years, living together for 5ish, and dating sometime since Jan. 2004. I work as a massage therapist after I surrendered my first career to this lifestyle. I obsess over my two Chihuahuas and 2 beastly rabbits. Okay, that’s enough intro stuff.

I moved to Chicago – Logan Square to be exact – in Dec. 2003. I was 23 and had just left my ex. I wasn’t in a bad situation with him, but I knew I was trapped and needed to get out in order to properly experience life. I had a master’s degree and a really good job with a nice, fat paycheck. I moved into my vintage apartment during a snowstorm. All of my worldly possessions fit into 3 SUVs; I had virtually nothing. Most of the space in the SUV’s was taken up by my 4 house rabbits’ condos (not cages, but condos). No table, no chairs, no couch, and I slept on a cot I bought from the Army surplus store. The first thing I purchased was a mattress because I needed a real bed. Have you slept on one of those Army cots?! My apartment’s echoing finally got to me, so I decided it was time to furnish my bare apartment. I walked down Milwaukee Street in the snow and browsed through the furniture stores. In order for me to buy something permanent, like furniture, it needs to ‘speak to me’. I was getting really discouraged in my search because those pieces of furniture had nothing to say, the only thing I could hear was my fingers whispering, “frostbite.” I decided to try one last store on the way home. As the door’s bell sang out my arrival, I instantly feel in love. This blue couch screamed, “You love me! You must buy me! Rescue me from this store!” How could I not rescue this poor couch? It needed me.

I have another problem shopping – price tag blindness. I fall in love, and then I turn over the price tag. Well, I flipped over the tag on this couch - $1,100. I didn’t care – I needed it! And I could save the money to buy this couch; fortunately I had enough common sense not to put it on a credit card (Looking back I just shake my head at my naiveté of making such an expensive purchase on a couch). For 2 months, while I saved, I visited my couch weekly; sometimes I walk down to the store twice a week just to sit on my couch. I met OccDoc while I was still ‘dating’ my couch. After he and I had been together for a month I decided it was time for OccDoc to ‘meet’ my couch. We walked down to the store while I told him all about this new love in my life (for the couch, not for him at this point). We walked into the store. I was engulfed in a sea of panic. Where was my couch?! I could feel my eyes go all glassy as I frantically searched around for my beloved. I couldn’t hear it screaming for me. OccDoc thought I was weird, but a cute weird, and he obliged me by helping me look. Finally after 10 minutes of scurrying around the store I found a sales clerk and asked about my couch. They had rearranged the store and the couch now resided in the back of the store. When I saw the couch in its new room it was like a mother finding her lost child in the mall. I cried a bit. I was never going to let that happen again! I decided not to pay my heating bill that month to buy the couch then and there (it was Feb. in Chicago – that was a bad idea).

Did I mention this was a custom-made couch? Oh, I am such an idiot. It took 12 weeks for them to loving craft my new piece of furniture. At first, when the couch came home, our relationship blossomed, but then it quickly soured. The couch did not like OccDoc. When OccDoc and I were making out on the couch (we were still dating, people) the couch would voice its discontent for the situation by digging the arm rest into my side or back. The original pillows sold with the couch were like two flat bricks. Usually our butt cheeks would fall asleep before we finished watching a movie on the couch. The couch probably weighs close to a ton, so moving it requires a team of strong men or oxen. Often times I sit on the floor with a pillow instead of sitting on my couch. Sad, but true. The couch was, and still is, beautiful, but not functional.

To this day I love my couch and it resides in the TV room in the basement, the Land of Misfit Furniture. Recently, I made some pillows to make the couch more comfortable. We bought a new living room set after moving to Texas five years ago, a couch, loveseat, chair, coffee table, and two end tables for under 800 bucks. I don’t really regret buying my blue couch; I don’t see it as a total waste of money because I learned some valuable lessons. The most important lesson: Furniture does not talk; I shouldn’t listen when a couch ‘calls’ to me, instead, I should see a psychiatrist if furniture starts holding a conversation with me.