Couch seat cushions

Apparently it’s the time of year a lot of people purchase new couches. The reason I say this is because there’s a lot of old couches being put out by the side of the road. I am surprised how many people put out their old couches without the cushion part that you sit on attached. Because what good is a couch without the cushion part?

What I think it is that they don’t want anyone to get to share their old couch with them. They want the usefulness of the couch to end with them. It’s their couch and no one else’s. Like not wanting to share things when you’re a kid just for the sake of it, because it’s yours, and you can do whatever you want with it. Even when you don’t need it any more.

Maybe it’s an intimacy thing. Like you spend so much time sitting on your couch you’re afraid that if other people sit on it too, then if time were to shift just a little backwards it would be like they were there with you in your living room watching the football game too but what if they were cheering for the other side? What if there were uncomfortable disagreements?

When I see a couch like that by the curb, the couch back exaggeratedly long from the lack of sitting cushions I think of murder. I think of bloody dripping cushions stashed somewhere away out of sight, evidence. But it would be a couch that the body was somehow awkwardly able not to be touching the back of.

Or an incontinent granny also stashed away but sneaking out so she can sit stubbornly on it, the couch, but then unknowingly leaking too many times on the seat cushions to the point of there’s nothing you can do to fix it anymore. All that’s left to do is glare and put the sofa out. Fill garbage bags with the cushions. Put them out on separate garbage days so no one pieces the awkwardness of it together.

A neighbour down the street from us actually put two couches out, included the cushions and covered them both with thin clear plastic. Talk about consideration! Wherever did they find sheets of plastic the perfect size to fit their couch? Some people are so organized.

What’s ideal about covering them up with plastic is that if it rains before someone finds the couch and decides they want to take it home, the couch doesn’t get ruined. Except I looked closely at these couches and I don’t know who would want them. They were in very bad condition. The fabric was all splitting, bursting open along the seams of the cushions.