I moved my couch last week, which is always a big mistake. Huge, really. And in retrospect, I can think of no worthy justification. Just literally none.
I mean, moving it for a party so more people will fit? It seems like a good reason to displace furniture, but now that I know what sort of dust and allergens, biohazards and malice I’ve stirred up, I really should’ve just let traffic flow suffer. Let people trip over the couch arms. Risk folks being trapped in the living room with no good exit strategy. But I failed to conduct the proper cost/benefit analysis for Couch Moving, even though I have excellent raw data that show the precarious predicament we always face.
God knows what sort of heinous diseases our unsuspecting guests were exposed to. It was a bad long term decision; there’s no way, years from now, when the Center for Disease Control traces a mysterious cancer contracted by dozens of humans back to the Big Gay Wedding at the Woolseys’ in 2018, our home owners’ insurance will be able to bear the liability payments. We’ll be bankrupt. Broke. Destitute. Not to mention the suffering of the innocents.
The good news is, I have zero photographic evidence of the piles and piles — and piles and piles — of dust and garbage and socks and hair and panties and wrappers and LEGOS and shoes and gloves and bones and spoons and toys and paper and games and germs and the inexplicable lake of sticky goo glueing it all together, so I have plausible deniability.
The bad news is, I’m a slow learner, so I moved the couch back.
And I do have photos of the supplemental pile that emerged from the black hole of horror thereunder.
Friends, this is what materialized on the second move, two days after the first. This is just what’s leftover after Move #1.
That’s what we missed the first time.
Worse, no one knows if this is all of it.
😳
There could be legions still underneath.
Hordes.
Throngs readying themselves for attack.
That stuff probably has reinforcements as plentiful as the massive garrisons of Mordor.
It probably hasn’t yet begun to fight.
It probably has yet to unleash its full fury upon the world.
Y’all, I don’t want to be hysterical or anything, but I took a tiny peek under the couch to see what may remain, and this is what I saw:
In conclusion, SOMEONE SHOULD GO GET HELP. I mean, far be it from me to overdramatize a situation or breed fear, but WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE.
Also, maybe think twice before you move your couch for the holidays.
#TheMoreYouKnow #HelpMeHelpYou #SaveYourselves
With love, and waving from the dark,
P.S. It’s time to play I Spy again! WOOHOO! Take a look at this FAB photo and let me know what you spy with your little eye. Extra points for rhyming.
P.P.S. I can’t decide what my favorite item is, but I’m leaning toward the single serving of months-old Ranch dip. 🤢 Not the kind that’s actually preserved or sealed, either. The kind with the loose lid that could give at any moment.
19 responses to “Stuff Under My Couch: A Cautionary Tale of Doom and Despair”
Julie wins, hands down.
At least you made me feel so much better about my recent couch move (done on purpose once I got my youngest in preschool this fall and wanted to hopefully find some missing items)! I did find lots of missing things but you have me beat on sheer volume of detritus but then again I only have 3 kids so we probably have comparable couch problems relative to number of people per couch.
Someone should conduct official scientific research on couch detritus per capita.
Several years back, I was at a kids’ party, and there was a blockage in the furniture flow, causing children to go pelting directly over each and every seated guest. Well, the hostess mama just got herself up and pushed the couch out of the path of destruction, as every single woman there gave a horrified gasp and cringed backwards, anticipating the wrath of God to come flooding out.
You know what was underneath?
Nothing.
Just floor. Clean, bare floor.
You have never seen a group of women so gobsmacked in your entire life.
She looked at us, all gawking in shock, sorta shrugged and said, “Cleaning lady.”
It was all we could talk about for the entire rest of the party. Years later, we still discuss it in hushed, reverent, absolutely baffled tones. And she still hasn’t divulged the particular spell she used to conjure up that kind of witchcraft…
I’ve never heard of such a thing! Make sure you remember who the witnesses were — when she’s up for sainthood, you can use this a proof of performing miracles.
But the important thing is that you know where your towel is. After all, any man that can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
42!
oh my gosh i love this. also these comments are amazing. i am conceding before i even start to attempt a rhyme.
A stuffed shark
Full of dust and snark.
A bar of oat-y crunch,
A sweet snack for us to munch.
Tape with crinkle
To make Tai-tai’s eyes twinkle
Don’t ask why my cat eats tape.
Duplo blocks,
And several socks,
A jaunty yellow ball
Astride a tickled towel.
Tissues galore
Adorn the uncovered floor
Garnished with a paper plate.
Brilliant!
I seriously just pulled many of the exact same things from under mine. Black sock, white socks, same duplos, same rag, all the same candy wrappers (Walmart Halloween aisle ftw), different brand roll of tape, but tape nonetheless. And WHOSE idea was it to get the children a marble run for Christmas last year? Because you know where every single one of those marbles goes, right? And I have to move them when 40 of our closest friends come for Thanksgiving. Maybe when we all die I can just blame my cooking.
HA!
Is that baby shark? Makes sense.
I think it’s a whale and it’s missing an eyeball.
I spy the love story of a lifetime—
Two red socks…. TOGETHER.
They defied the odds and the universe,
And promised they’d never be parted.
Through laundry and sleepovers and the pool bag,
They kept their vow.
Despite the universe predestining them for separate lives—
The back of the sock drawer
Or under the sink in a bin meant for hair ties—
Or wherever socks go when it is their time—
NO
THEY HAD TO BE TOGETHER.
Giving up their purpose,
just to be together.
Growing with dust
— and with love
In the dark,
Under your couch.
This is GENIUS. Greg read it aloud to me in the bathroom.
Did you same rhyme? My only writing talent is 5 minute rhyming “poems” lol
A furniture we are moving
To get the party grooving
and to what did my wondering eyes did appear
(or were my eyes closed out of fear?)
a towel, a rag…
what’s even in that in a plastic bag?
a granola bar, a little snack
and some legos for us to stack
dip we could eat, maybe we should
I take that back, it would kill us, it definitely would
I spy a dog’s ball
and likely all the dust in from the hall
A button or a coin, I don’t even know
our couch can put on a show!
Some kleenex in case you want to cry
why don’t they put them in the garbage, or even try?
A whale, a wrapper, a plate
I’d trade them in but I think it’s too late.
But all of this is mere evidence
of good family times past and about to commence!
Love!
There’s the red Tupperware lid I’ve been looking for since yesterdy-forever!