Settling In

I've been trying to completely quit my credit card since I've moved out. But I failed miserably over the weekend. For this very reason, you are now looking at a proud owner of a couch. Ok, fine, it's a futon. All my aspirations to have "real" and "grown up" furniture went down the drain with the purchase of this useful piece. It ALMOST looks like a couch. It's definitely not the "mattress on a frame" kind, although I almost bought that... but then my self-respect would've completely been destroyed.

Of course buying the thing was only half the task. The other half was getting it into my new apartment -- particularly from the car to the unit. For the weekend I borrowed my mom's pimp mini-van -- the couch fit snuggly in the back. Since the parents weren't available, I started looking for help amongst Seattle-dwellers of acquaintance. (Of course offers to help came largely AFTER the couch was already in the apartment.)

I woke up too late for my guy friend with muscle to help, and my girl with muscle woke up too late to help me. Fortunately, my "twin" Anna rushed to the rescue as soon as I called her. That's when all the fun began. There's technically only one way the couch would've even fit into the narrow openings leading into my unit. This way, naturally, was not at all the most comfortable to hold the couch for two frail women. It was also, of course, not the way we first figured we need to hold it.

One of the features that sold the futon to me was the fact that it folds two ways -- horizontally and vertically. A very versatile and useful combination for sitting or laying down. Not so much for moving it through narrow spaces. The only way it would've fit was if it was completely unfolded, standing vertically up on one of its sides. The couch, of course, had a mind of its own. It was determined to exhibit all its usefulness before it was set down on the designated spot. Both sides kept folding on their own at the worst possible times. At one point it was a toss-up between ruining the couch and ruining the railing around the apartment. Somehow both survived.

After 20 minutes of Herculian effort and hysterical laughter, the futon was finally in my living room. Of course, the thing looks A LOT bigger in my apartment than it did on the show floor in Fred Meyers. But it fit. And we got it in. Now I can have people over with a place for them to actually sit. I'm also now a proud owner of my first large piece of furniture, as well as worthy, serious, life expense related, grown up, credit card debt :)