The White Couch

Many years ago, when I was an undergrad, or perhaps an early grad student, I saw a book, innocently titled, The Red Couch. This book was basically what the title said it was. It was about a red couch.

This red couch was brought all across the country. People of all sorts were asked to sit with it. From farmers to city folk. From poor to rich. From famous to obscure. The red couch was put on a boat. It was near a mountain.

Much like the garden gnome sent on flights in Amelie, this red couch, though inanimate, seemed to go through adventures, an artificial man-made creation, starkly red, set against natural backdrops all over the country.

I didn't think much of it at the time, the cleverness of the idea.

In the living room that I live, for the past five or six years, sat a large white couch. It was still in pretty good shape. David Hovemeyer, developer of FindBugs, a tool for finding bugs in Java code, would often spend nights sleeping on this couch. Another Dave would sleep on it as well. I spent a few days here and there.

It was probably six feet in length, and being less than six feet, I could sleep on it comfortably. I thought about bringing it to my new place, but it was pretty large, so I took a smaller loveseat instead.

Tonight, I returned back to house, to pick up a few more things. A father and son were coming by to pick up the large couch. The son was heading to Virginia Tech soon, the site of such tragedy last year. This couch, which had spent its inanimate life in our house was now making a journey down south, down to Blacksburg. It will see more of Virginia Tech than I've seen.

Perhaps I'm a bit nostalgic to point this out. I mean, for most, it's a couch. I just got rid of a bed I had that belonged to a friend, which I inherited (so to speak) from. I realized it was a crappy bed, but it was good for the time I had it. I still have the mattress, but it was kind of useless.

I have to really hand it to Jess for seeing that in all the stuff we'd accumulated over the years, that someone, somewhere would want our stuff, especially if we gave it for free. Several couches, a large dining room table, odds and ends all over. It's not all gone now, but a lot of it is.

It does make me think, from time to time, how much I simply buy things. Some people are very restrained. They don't need much. They don't want much. They are ascetic, spartan. On the other hand, I see something I vaguely like, or think I'll need, and there it goes. I've bought it. The lesson I've (kinda) learned over the years is that you must use the thing you buy as soon as possible. If you leave it around, it ain't getting used.

But as I'm undisciplined, I have stuff, and lots of it. I've gotten to some stage where I can get rid of stuff, but it's not easy. I'm hoping having my own place will do it. But it's a lot of stuff, and already, it occupies much of my open space, though I see that I haven't tried to organize it and make more space.

The white couch, I suspect, have it better. It is inanimate. It moves on. It lives its inanimate life in a new state.

May you see a new set of adventures.