Books Satisfy More Than The Urge To Read

So the darnedest thing happened. We knew it was happening and just did not want to admit it. Then stage one hit, then stage 2 hit last night. It is our couch. It all began when we sold our really comfortable and very large couch in Las Vegas. I miss that couch, but we had a back up; a cute euro-style click clack couch that was small enough to fit into our unknown space and comfortable enough to use til we could afford a new one. It also doubles as a place to sleep for guests when needed. Well, now that you have the brief background, here goes stage one of the, well, I'll just tell the story.

When we sold our couch we moved the click clack into the living room to sit on til we moved. It was nice and comfortable and we could lay the back down to both be able to lay down while watching TV. One night when I did the rare thing of playing with the dog, I threw his ball back behind the couch (as I have done many times before) and to my surprise, Jasper grew wings and leaped over the couch...not quite clearing it. We heard a crack and a bang. The back of the couch fell back and lay slightly off. We quickly flipped it over to assess the damage. The event caused the back of the left side of the couch to be torn from the mechanism and to our fortune, it was an easy fix. A few large long screws and it was back. We noticed the mechanism on the right side a little off, but it worked and we were happy. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago....
We are happily sitting on the couch after a long day of job hunting and running errands when all of the sudden, the right side of the couch cracked and fell back. We had nothing to fix it with. I just laughed as Walter had a slightly pissed off and slightly distraught look on his face. Great, something more to go wrong. So, we laid the couch back and left it as a bed sitting in the living room. It worked since we had the dresser in there anyway (remember how it would not fit up the stairs in the move...). We pushed it back up against the buffet and threw some pillows on it and Viola! it was usable again, at least until we could fix it. Forward to last week...
We hit Wal-mart and got some screws to screw it back in with. Flipped it over and began unscrewing and rescrewing the bottom and side of the "click clack mechanism". It took a little time and we finished and flipped it over. Clicked it up only to have it come clacking back down. Shit! What were we supposed to do now. I was not finding it as funny as I did the first time. I assessed the couch and realized that we could screw in a piece of wood to the back that would keep it up. Walter bettered my idea by adding hinges to it so the couch could still lay back and function as a bed. It was off to Home Depot! For less than $10 we had all we needed. Back home to make the fix. Here was the result....

We were proud of our ghetto...uhem, I mean innovative fix to our problem. It was great and we have only forgotten to make sure the board in the back is secure before we lean back 2 times. Well, last night stage 2 of couch hell hit. I have to admit, this part did not make me feel too good about myself nor my weight. Walter was on the couch watching TV and I was in cooking dinner. I came in and sat on the end of the couch to watch while my stuff was grilling. All of the sudden I felt the couch lean forward and down. I though to myself "What is Walter doing leaning forward. Is he trying to make the couch flip over?" I turned to him and his eyes were as big as mine with confusion. We looked down and the couch was not leaning, the corner WAS going down and it was the leg that was bending. I jumped off and onto my hands and knees crouched looking at the leg. It was definately shorter than before. I slight grin passed over my face as I began to laugh. I was laughing over the couch. Over that fact that a little more than a month ago this would not have been a problem, we would have just gone (and had the cash) to buy a new couch. Funny how quickly things change (by our choice mind you, but still funny). I could not stop laughing as I told Walter to pick out some books to brace the couch up with. It seemed to work, but I could get a better brace if I just took the leg off. You can see here the bend which was worse, but I had to bend it mostly back to be able to take the leg off.A few more books and here it is. Our ghetto fabulous couch that, well, I do not see getting rid of any time soon, saddly. I guess it just goes to show, sometimes you gotta just laugh at life and what it dishes out.