Our son recently showed me a picture of a nice looking loveseat. It would match our living room perfectly and had an automatic recliner on both sides that lays totally flat, with a console in the middle. Wow. That’s nice. He asked me if we wanted it. Well yeah, but not really, we just got the loveseat we have not long ago, which fits the space and doesn’t have recliners, so it’s really easy for me to move by myself. That’s mostly to get to the outlet behind it and vacuum under it on those years when I spring clean.
I told him to ask his dad and see what he says. “I already did and he wants it,” he said. Well, what are you even asking me for? It seems this was already settled without me. So first, Dave and I needed to find a home for the one we have. It’s a cute little chocolate brown loveseat with no frills, also no rips, no stains, and no hiding the “bad side of the cushion.”
I texted photos of it to all our friends and my co-workers. The photo just happened to include our Beagle Boy Cletus’ stuffed monkey, that spends most of its time perched up on the back. I got lots of compliments on its cuteness, but no takers until I got to work the next day. My co-worker said he was interested in it for his son’s place, but only if the monkey came with it. Geez, I dunno if Cletus is ready to part with his monkey. I’ll have to ask him.
So I let my co-worker know the next day that I had indeed asked Cletus and he wasn’t willing to forgo the monkey. I thought that was the end of the joke so I was surprised when he said he was still interested in the loveseat. Awesome. I thought this was all just in fun, but our cute little loveseat was going to a good home after all.
We made tentative plans to do the swap on Saturday. Old Man Winter put the kibosh to that. He wiped out plans for the next couple of Saturdays, too. The following weekend, we visited our son and our granddogs, and while we were there, I thought I could sneak a peek at our new-to-us loveseat. So where is ours? I was shocked to discover it had been at our house the whole time in his enclosed trailer in our driveway. Whatever.
Eventually, the weather broke enough that we could make some solid plans for the swap on Saturday. So Friday night after work I got busy. I can’t have my co-worker and his son moving our loveseat and seeing that spring cleaning year wasn’t this year. I moved it to the other side of the room and vacuumed everything. And decided from that glimpse of the loveseat on our son’s phone that it was longer than our current one. So I moved the end table and vacuumed there, too. On the other end is our puzzle table (formerly my parents’ dining room table).
Under that, is Cletus’ hidey-hole, the base of which is a giant four-foot stuffed animal, topped with an extra large dog bed, a quilt, about 10-12 other assorted little blankets and 10-15 stuffed animals. The problem was that the big stuffed animal’s head was hanging completely out into the space needed for the loveseat. I had to haul everything single thing out of the hidey-hole to turn it around the other way. And while I had everything out, I vacuumed under there and tossed all of Cletus’ things into the dryer with a wet washcloth and a dryer sheet in small loads to knock some of the doggie smell off.
Apparently, I knocked too much off because after I had rebuilt the hidey-hole, Cletus wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Wouldn’t go near it. I crawled in it to show him how spiffy it was, but he ignored me. I stayed in there a bit thinking he’d have to come to his senses and at least come see what I was doing. He didn’t. I woke up about a half hour later and went to bed.
The next day, Dave and I snuck off for about an hour, planning to be back in plenty of time for the big swap. We missed the biggest part of it. By the time we got home, the old one was out, the new one was in and Cletus was settling into it. If he thinks I’m trading my spot on the loveseat for his hidey-hole, he can forget it.
