This is why we can’t have nice things

Airborne 2007

This week we say goodbye to the living room sofa we’ve had for the past 16 years. That sofa holds a lot of memories. And urine.

Tip for young families: never, ever purchase a suede sofa. Suede is the least wipeable of all the fabrics. We had a sense of this when we purchased the thing those many years ago. That’s why we opted for the post-delivery ScotchGuard treatment that, the salesman assured us, would cause spilled liquids to bead upon its pristine surface like fresh morning dew on springtime meadows.

I can confirm that the ScotchGuard guy did show up, but I feel like he applied the stuff the way one would gently mist the leaves of an oversensitive houseplant. In short, it didn’t take. Spilled liquids were not, in fact, whisked away with the simple wipe of a cloth but were quickly absorbed into the very molecular structure of the sofa.

We learned this quickly, within hours of the so-called treatment, in fact. In the intervening years, the cumulative food that has been spilled on and into the sofa would be sufficient to make a small stew. The other day, while looking for the remote between the cushions (always a queasy experience, like putting your hand into a potato bag you’re sure contains something rotten), I found a fork. Who doesn’t notice their fork has gone missing, and what does this say about my children? The point is, you would also have utensils to eat your sofa stew.

In a pinch, you could suckle on a cushion and live off the nutrients for five to seven days. But then you would die, because the sofa is undoubtedly teeming with bacteria and possibly the primordial ingredients for the creation of life. It has been peed upon, it has been vomited upon. On too many occasions to recall, I have caught the dog on the sofa slurping away at its various parts and leaving behind a wet patch of saliva.

And the dog herself has been wet, rolling around on the sofa in ecstasy, grinding sand and dirt into the fabric. There is fur. There is so much fur.

As a result of all these years of abuse, pet care and sub-par eating skills, the beige suede of the sofa has acquired a glossy, tar-like coating, one that never entirely feels dry, a kind of Cronenberg couch. It has a sheen, and it’s a Charlie sheen, not Martin.

Oh, and it also smells, but at this point that probably goes without saying.

I haven’t even touched on its physical deterioration, the result of years of slouching, jumping, humping. Humping? God, I hope not, but there’s no guarantee. From the very beginning, this couch was physically abused, starting with the time someone slashed the fabric in the back, an act of vandalism our son denies to this day and cites as an example of unfair persecution, and we are very sorry, but, let’s be honest, who else could it have been?

The sofa goes this week. It is obviously long overdue, particularly from a public health standpoint.

And yet part of me is filled with regret, and not only because it’s in my nature not to throw anything out until it is entirely unusable, and, technically, you can still sit on the sofa, albeit with hand sanitizer at the ready.

I’m sad because so much has happened on that sofa, and not all of it gross. The family sitting around watching movies, snuggled under blankets and passing popcorn, said popcorn finding its way between the cushions. Late nights flicking through infomercials trying to get the baby back to sleep. Stretched out reading a book with the dog warming my feet. The time we took photographs of ourselves leaping from the chair to the sofa, making it look like we were suspended in air. Falling asleep on it, with its surprising back support, though always being sure to avoid skin contact.

It’s no secret that our objects are imbued with sentiment, or in this case apple juice. Often we protect and cherish these precious things, polishing them, showcasing them, not squishing grapes into them. But sometimes those things become ugly because they are not just full of stains but lives. Getting rid of the sofa is another sign of those lives passing and the end of childhood, that messiest of all business.

The sofa goes this week. We’ll put it out by the curb. It’s yours if you want it. Comes with bonus DNA.