Criticult.Com

It's strange how the older you get, you start to notice the 'little' things in life. It isn't unlike watching a movie or reading a book several times, and seeing something you hadn't noticed before even though you're repeating the same activity.

Likewise with life, if you're unfortunate enough to get into a rut for long enough you will eventually begin to take note of such things. You begin to notice your own peculiar little zeitgeist of boredom.

So it is with furniture. There is a point in the lives of most normal middle class people where you've graduated (or otherwise left) college and find yourself living on your own for the first time. At this point all the furniture you own is probably borrowed, found in an alley or courtesy of the grocery store down the street.

At some point, you enter a phase of life where things evolve and before you know it you're doing things like opening a checking account, investing in real estate, showing up at work on time and even - hold on to your hats - buying your own furniture.

Little by little all of the old remnants of your life pre-financial solvency diminish and fade away but this takes time, to be sure. I'll be honest here - I am a homeowner but furnishing it has never been a priority. I have decent furniture, it's just that it is almost all second hand and by that I mean things my parents once gave me, or friends unloaded on me after getting married and realizing they now had three queen size beds and four sets of bookshelves.

They are nice enough things but they are nonetheless second hand. Not to mention that when I look at the furniture in my living room the stuff doesn't exactly all match. Seriously, there are more woods in here than a golf bag. But I am the type of guy who likes things simple, functional and efficient. I'd like to have a house full of kick ass furniture, hardwood floors, pictures on the walls and a space age stainless steel kitchen but I am in no way willing to go into debt to get it.

When the television I have finally explodes, I'll get a new one. When the bookshelf I have collapses then I will replace it. And when the Orkin man shuts the bathroom door where I keep the litter box and eight hours later the cat decides to use the couch...

...I will grudgingly but finally get a new couch. Trust me, like the blood on Macbeth's hands or the shame you felt after taking home Samantha Dogface after the bar closed last Saturday night - some things just cannot be washed out.

This brings me to the subject of this post.

I was over at a friend's house this weekend watching some football. This is a good friend but nonetheless the sort of person who is still using the same filthy furniture from the year after college some fifteen plus years later and thinking nothing of it. This isn't my problem of course but when I mentioned the incident with my couch and that I would soon be purchasing a new living room set I was informed that my friend was considering the same thing and that I would be welcome to his existing sectional.

Normally this is the sort of generosity would be appreciated but this time no sooner than the words had left his mouth I felt something...a pang of some sort in my stomach. It felt something like the time back in college when you ate that Hamburger Helper out of your friend's dorm room fridge. You knew full well it had been in there for three weeks but at this stage in your life you're pretty much thumbing through the Universal Rolodex of Bad Decisions and dialing every number at random.

It wasn't twenty minutes before that first stomach cramp arrived and you knew you were going to be spending the night in the emergency room with a tube in your arm.

Well, this is how I felt when my friend said 'You're welcome to my sectional when I get my new stuff'. I leaned back in my chair, peered into the living room and took in said sectional. Remember what I said - good friend but the sort of person whose home still looks sort of like a frat house. The carpet looks like it's moving, the floorboards along the walls all have fur, the microwave looks like someone cooked a hamster in it and if I sent a swab from the bottom of the refrigerator to the CDC in Atlanta I'd be arrested for biological terrorism.

Similarly, the couch in question (along with just about everything else in the living room) was covered with a very visible film of cigarette smoke, beer stains, and dog snot from the pair of eighty pound pooches that also share the house.

And let's not forget the body oil stains from where people's arms, legs, bare backs and God knows what else have been in constant contact with this never-been-cleaned biohazard over the course of its unfortunate existence.

Full disclosure: I do sit on this thing when I am over there but it is just to be polite. You have to respect a friend inviting you into his home but you don't have to approve of the accommodations. Just the thought of putting this monstrosity in my living room made my skin crawl and the fact that my friend would assume I wanted it sort of...well...

Insulted me.

I keep a pretty damn clean home - in fact most of the time it is probably nearly as clean as the day I bought it. I'm not saying the place is going to win any awards - I told you about my admittedly Spartan tastes. But even though the walls are still bare after three years and it is only slightly better furnished than a Howard Johnson's it sure as hell is CLEAN. And let's not forget - I mentioned I had to get rid of my own couch because the cat pissed on it, and my pal turns around and offers me something that looks like it was fished out of an empty lot in Upper Ninth Ward New Orleans and transported here tied to the top of a Chevy Impala.

There's only one couch in America I'd like to own less.

Are you serious? Is this what you think of me? Are you high? Pluck the saddest character out of any Charles Dickens novel and ask him where he'd like to sleep tonight - on this couch or a storm sewer and you know what his answer would be?

Well actually I am pretty sure the answer would be "You have sewers?!?"

But you get my point. Don't worry though, as I said this is still a friend of mine so I politely declined, although I am sure the look on my face gave away what I was thinking. But there's no reason to go there with people. There just isn't a polite way to inform someone that the toilet upstairs is actually cleaner now that you've used it.