By the lovely Ms. Denise
It was time. Even my mother knew it. On a Saturday visit last September, she sat down on the sofa next to me, put her hand over mine and in a serious voice said "Honey. It's about time you bought some grown up furniture."Gasp. She was right. I'm 33. I have a 10 month old baby and have been married for 7 years. I own my house and have a good job. I love painting and home improvement, and yet my living room was a wreck. I had the blue futon, the only piece of furniture my husband brought into the marriage, the green pull out sofabed that was in the guest room when we bought the house, and old blue. Sigh. Blue, my l-shaped 1950s sofa and ottoman, the first piece of furniture I bought as an adult. It was 1998. I was just back from a summer backpacking around Europe and I found that sofa. It came from the City Furniture on Magazine Street in New Orleans. It was my first piece of furniture that couldn't be broken down and thrown in the back of a car for easy moving. It was the sofa that said "I am laying down roots, building a life. I intend to stay."
Maybe that's why I cried when the people from Craigslist came to pick it up. It was more than a beat up sofa with the stuffing falling out, it was the symbol of a major turning point in my young adult life.
But mom was right. When the baby started pulling the stuffing out of the sofa and trying to eat it, it became clear that a grown up life required a grown-up sofa. It was hard to admit that I was, indeed, grown up, even though I had all the accoutrements: husband, baby, homeowner, college degree, career. Yep, grown up. Officially. Like it or not.
I guess I just never realized that being a grown up came with matching furniture. It took me months to find a sofa. I poured over magazines, IKEA catalogs, you name it. Many were just too expensive. My old live like a college student cheapskate ways were not totally thrown to the side simply because I was in my mid-30s. No way. Sofas overall, are a significant purchase. Even the cheap ones are north of $500, easily north of $1,000. And you only buy one once every how many years? Once you get it, unless you want to shell out more dough, you are stuck with it.
I don't make those kind of life-changing major decisions without deliberation. Then, in February, I found the sofa. And to make me feel even more old, lame and responsible, I was at Macy's. And I first saw it in a sale flyer I got from my home-delivered Sunday paper. My 24-year-old self wouldn't even recognize me now.
The brightly-lit Macy's showroom was calculatedly cheerful. The piped-in music and the room montages were craftily engineered to make you spend money, to make $300 nonfunctional dining room table displays seem like an investment. Donna waited on me.
I don't do well under pressure, or in social situations, so I had a list of three sofa model names scribbled on my sale flyer. I wasn't going to stray from the too good to be true sale, no sireee, not on the first day out. I was easy prey. After sitting on all three sofas, we bought two of the first one. They were delivered three weeks later. The color made me laugh: Hampton Pear. It reaks of faux sophistication. No one in the Hamptons has this $600 sofa, they've got the real deal $12,000 models I drooled over in the magazines. I chuckled, realizing I am not the demographic that is impressed by silly color names that smack of class.
Last night, I had some friends over. One, a librarian, 32 years old, married three years, asked about the sofa. I told her I bought it at Macy's, and in hushed tones, she told me that she too had purchased a sofa at Macy's recently.
"Doesn't it make you feel old?", she whispered.
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