Thrifted Couch

Thirty-six people sat, crammed into the living room of our small student apartment. To this day, I don’t know that any of us are entirely sure how all 36 people ended up at our place; we didn’t invite all 36 people, we didn’t know all 36 people, nor did we see all 36 people again.

I experience a degree of social anxiety, which manifests itself most commonly the form of “silent Tyler.” When I am unfamiliar with people or surroundings, I become incredibly shy and I tend not to engage, even with my friends in the crowd.

There were 36 people in my apartment, most of whom I didn’t know. That night, we got “silent Tyler.” I sat silently in the corner and watched as chaos ensued. I’m sure the strangers in the room and the friends-of-15-years alike saw me lurking in the corner and thought, who’s this freak in the corner, and what’s his deal?

Well, my deal was that I was uncomfortable, and I never wanted to see 36 people in my apartment ever again.

Unfortunately, my roommates did not agree. This became a regular thing. Week after week, I would walk in the front door after a long shift at work to find a swarm of friends and strangers socializing loudly in my living room.

One January night, I opened the front door upon returning from a weekend trip to Idaho. My brother, who I lived with, and I had gone to see our nephew; I guess our grandparents and our older brother and sister-in-law were technically there too. On that night, the living room was rid of screeching young adults. There was, however, sitting before us, a couch, far too large for our living room.

“Hey-o!” Our roommate rounded the corner to welcome me and my brother home from our trip.

“W-what?” I gestured vigorously at the upholstered elephant in the room.

“We got a couch!”

“Really?” I blurted that sarcastic response in place of the expletive that had initially come to mind. “Where? Why? How?”

He explained that he and the other roommates had found it for free on Facebook Marketplace, that they had borrowed a buddy’s truck to retrieve the thing, and that we needed more places for people to sit when we hosted game nights.

My mind immediately moved to refute any logic that supported the acquisition of the couch. What if this thing is infested with bed bugs, or cockroaches, or a squatter? We’re going to move eventually, and we’ll have to find a way to get this thing out of here. More game nights? More people??

I had only known this couch for a matter of minutes, and I hated it.

A quick inspection of the couch left me reassured that I wouldn’t contract the Bubonic plague or herpes from the thing. And I really wouldn’t have to worry about moving it for likely over a year. But the people.

Don’t get me wrong—I am a social person. I just also happen to be an introverted and an anxious person. Meeting new people can be incredibly stressful, especially in large groups. I always joke that my social battery runs on AAs, whereas so many of my friends seem to run on nuclear energy.

The social gatherings in our living room continued. At first, I seldom stayed around for the chaos. However, with time, the groups of people grew more consistent, and I found myself sticking around more, staying longer, making friends. I’ve met some really special friends who mean a great deal to me, sitting on our large, thrifted couch.

I used to teach high school. Needless to say, I returned from work each day completely drained. One day, I crossed the threshold of the apartment, threw my bag on the floor, superman’d face-first into the couch, and I fell asleep. The next day, I came home and repeated the process. And the next day. And the next. Before long, I had a standing afternoon appointment with our secondhand settee.

My relationship with this couch much resembled that of a dad who adamantly protests the idea of getting a family dog, but the family gets the dog anyway, and eventually the dad loves the dog more than his own children. We've all seen it happen.

The couch that I once detested became a gathering place for me and my people. It became my napping couch. It became my home office, my home theater, the central figure around which my life seemed to revolve.

In March 2022, my roommates and I were notified that our building would be closed for renovations at the end of our lease, and that we would need to find a new place to live. I signed a lease at a new apartment, my roommates signed at a different apartment. In August, the time came for us to vacate.

And we had to get the stupid couch out of our stupid third-story apartment.

I wish I had video evidence of the unconventional removal of the couch. We had to flip this thing upside-down and backwards. At every corner, we had to entirely readjust. The back cushions were only attached at the top, so every time we adjusted the couch in a new direction, the back cushions flopped over and complicated the whole endeavor; I was the designated cushion un-flopper.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. The same is true with moving this couch. By the time we got down the first flight of stairs, there were approximately 150 people helping, and all of us were completely fed up with the task. We didn’t even bother trying to get it down the second flight of stairs. Instead, the group divided. Half the group stayed on the second floor with the couch. The other half migrated to the ground level, just below the second-floor balcony; that’s where I reluctantly stood.

The upper group heaved the behemoth piece of furniture over the second-floor banister. I remember the moment the couch’s center of gravity shifted and it teetered toward us. In that moment, the feelings of hatred I felt on that January night, 19 months before, the night this couch infiltrated my life, came rushing back. The good times we had shared, the naps, the late-night homework sessions, the long chats with great friends, none of it meant anything to me anymore. I hated this couch. I hated everything it represented and stood for. I hated Facebook Marketplace for bringing this couch into my life. I hated my friend’s friend for lending his truck. I hated his truck, and I hoped it would be engulfed in a fiery explosion. Most of all, I hated myself for ever moving to Utah, for ever being born, even.

Me and 75 of my closest friends braced ourselves with our arms outstretched toward heaven as a collective Superman, charged with stopping the meteor hurdling toward Earth; surely if we allowed this couch to make impact with the ground, it would cause the next mass extinction.

As it turns out, there really were enough of us ready to catch the couch that we did so with ease. We loaded it into the bed of a different, unexploded, borrowed truck, and drove it off to be put away in storage for a few weeks.

On the way to storage, I stopped and got myself two Hot ‘N’ Spicy McChickens and a large Coke (no ice, of course). I quickly hated everything a lot less. Evidently, I was hangry.

Two weeks passed. I had gotten settled in my new apartment. My old roommates all moved into their new place. It became immediately evident that each of our new flats had living rooms much smaller than the one we had just moved out of. There was no way we could keep the couch.

I decided that it was only fair for us to perpetuate the couch's the life cycle. I would list the couch for free on Facebook Marketplace for some other wide-eyed college students to put in their not-very-spacious-but-still-more-spacious-than-my-new-place apartment.

I drove to where we were storing the couch to take pictures for the Marketplace listing. To my shock, horror, and disappointment, I discovered that, in the short time our couch was in storage, it had become home for multiple very large spiders, and was used as a playground by some mice that need to be potty trained.

“I’m not listing the couch on Facebook Marketplace without disclosing the issue with the spiders and mice,” I deliberated with my old roommates, who I began to realize I missed seeing every day, even if I did visit their apartment multiple times a week, “but I also don't really want to say anything about spiders or mice.”

We really didn’t have much choice but to throw away the couch.

With heavy hearts, we scouted out ideal dumping locations for our dearly beloved. We re-obtained the borrowed truck (the unexploded one) and transported the couch to a dumpster at an undisclosed location, which was technically on private property, but it seemed to be the least likelihood that the couch would be in anyone’s way or that it would be traced back to us. I know, we’re the worst kind of people. But we already knew that, and I feel no shame.

We stood the couch up on its side, in the dumpster. It poked out the top in the same way the Burj Khalifa rises over the rest of the Dubai skyline. We each said our goodbyes to our old friend, and we drove off.

Probably three days later, one of my old roommates happened to be in the area near where we had disposed of the couch. He went to see if it was still there or if it had been collected with the rest of the garbage without a problem. To all our amusement, there the couch remained, having been removed from the dumpster and thrown on its back, seat cushions nowhere to be seen. Certainly, more than a few garbage collectors, groundskeepers, and security personnel have look at our old couch and thought, I should probably do something about that, but I won’t.