YSaC, Vol. 472: Please roll to save versus couch
I don’t want to alarm you folks, but at any moment, this could arrive:
Unique Magical Couch!
Beautiful magical couch! The gorgeous imagery depicts old timey water mills and fancy houses! Totally clean! Smells normal! Perfectly good, except one of its legs has disappeared! But put a book underneath it and its as good as new. Free, just come to our house and pick it up! Or, maybe, we’ll come drop it off to you, if you’re close by.
Call us at ### ### ####
That’s right. You could be at home, minding your own business, peacefully flossing the cat, when suddenly, whether you call them or not, they might come drop this couch off to you. At any moment, you might be the victim of a drive by couching.
And not just any couch. A magical couch. One which has a disappearing leg!
Actually, I’m far less concerned about the leg than the fact that it appears to come with an accordion. Although, that may at least provide some warning…
INT. HOUSE, NIGHT
(A pair of YOUNG NEWLYWEDS, JOHN and LINDA are getting settled into their new apartment.)
LINDA: This sure is a nice apartment.
JOHN: Yes, we were lucky to find one so close to work.
(Faintly, a brief chord is heard in the distance)
LINDA: Did you hear something?
JOHN: I’m sure it was just the wind.
(Slightly louder and closer now, a snatch of “Lady of Spain” is just audible)
LINDA: I’m sure I heard something!
JOHN: I heard it too.
(The music is continuous now, and a bizarre, three legged scraping slowly becomes audible from the stairs outside the apartment)
JOHN: I’m going to see what’s out there!
LINDA: NO! Don’t open the door!
(John opens the door and is blasted across the room by a cacophonous roar of “Beer Barrel Polka.” There is a magical couch in the hall, covered in water mills and fancy houses.)
LINDA: (Screams)
Thanks for the nightmare, Kirsten!
I love that the couch has an accordion sitting on it. Perhaps the couch’s magical power is that it spontaneously generates annoying-sounding musical instruments…
Or maybe it knows how to play the accordion! I mean, how awesome would that be? MY COUCH TAKES REQUESTS *points to tip jar*
Spontaneous generation of annoying instruments? Ack, what if bagpipes suddenly appeared? That would be truly horrifying.
On the plus side, the couch would then be Scotch guarded.
Why would you want a bunch of drunk dudes falling all over your lap onto your couch?
😛
I am intrigued (but not sure I really want to know) about the disappearing leg. What if it reappears?
That fabric design is vile. My parents had a set (bought in the ’70s and kept for about 12 years) with a similar, but less frightening design, so I’m going to guess that it is about 30 years old. In fact, the wood detail on the arms looks very familiar, too. Probably same manufacturer. *shudder*
Scary as those things are, I’m with dan – the accordion just puts the potential fear factor over the top.
*~*~*~*
Hey! I’m the quote source – the speculative dialogue from the dom whose sub can say anything. Heh.
I’d like to add that “smells normal” is hardly the same thing as “doesn’t smell.”
What’s normal for these sellers?
(a.) Perhaps they smoke cigars.
(b.) Maybe they have three dozen cats and one litterbox.
(c.) Could be they really like to fry fish on the weekends.
(d.) Something stranger and stronger?
(E.) Perhaps they are big fans of NASCAR?
I don’t want my couch to smell of gasoline, fried chicken, and plumbers crack… 😉
Plumbers’ crack has a smell? I’ve never gotten close enough to find this out.
Lola, I’d imagine it smells somewhat like the bathroom after my 56 year old father finishes up does.
Igor, what is your dad doing with does in the bathroom? That’s not the right place to dress venison!
Was that a grammatical error on my part, or a case of misread inflections? Igor cannot tellth.
I was being deliberately obtuse. But there are definitely grammar pedants out there who would insist that like is a preposition, not a conjunction, and is therefore followed by a phrase and not a clause. If you want to use a subject and a verb in your comparison, use as instead of like.
But that’s only what the particularly persnickety would say. One way or another, does is probably unnecessary in your sentence.
But in this case I mainly just saw a nice opportunity for a ridiculous image.
Either way, I like it.
On another note, you want to know what kind of cake you were working for, Isaac? THIS KIND.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3WF-5-o2KA
“Smells normal” seemed odd to me, too.
On the plus side, the spelling and grammar is not too bad, if a little enthusiastic.
If it reappears, you’ll simply have a leg-sized hole in your book. No problem.
Stick All Quiet on the Western Front under it. Kemmerich would get his leg back and the whole book would be much happier.
There’s always the alternate possibility that 2 items filling the same space at the same time will result in a massive watermill and fancy-house explosion. No real loss, discounting the potential collateral damage to the rest of your house.
But we can’t really say what would happen if two solid objects occupied the same space. I personally wouldn’t risk it and, I feel that you should not place the rest of us in such extreme danger. You’re just like those “scientists” and their LHC, “Well we don’t know if it will destroy the world, so let’s fire it up.” 😛
Is it possible that the couch IS the LHC?
Oh, I’ve always wanted a magical couch! I have it on a good authority that if you tap the knob thrice and give it a turn to the left it takes you to cartoon land where you can dance and sing with the fishes and Angela Lansbury.
I’ve always wondered how it feels to breathe animated water.
Honestly, I’m terrified right now. My grandparents used to have a couch that looked just like that (except theirs had four legs) in their house for years, until they moved to a retirement home.
I didn’t know it was magical, though. Maybe it didn’t become magical until it lost one of the legs.
My aunt Lola had one with this same pattern, but it was ensconced in vinyl the entire time she had it, around twenty years. (It was in the ‘formal’ parlor) You had to be very careful sitting on it or you would slide right off.
My great-grandmother had one like it too. Hers was sold at auction after she passed away (as is the custom in my part of the country), so this could even be *the very same one*. (Although, you know, doubtful.)
I am certain that I’ve seen that upholstery fabric in my Grandma’s house somewhere, either as a couch or a recliner. I can’t remember which. I’ll have to check next time I visit her.
Yep. Add me to the list of those whose grandparents had that very same, terrifying, couch. I cannot vouch for the number of legs, though. Never checked. And there was absolutely no accordion involved. I woulda remembered that. (And the resulting therapy.)
I bet this couach is precisely the sort of thing those cherrleaders were looking for earlier this week. If it’s magical, it can probably lead them to new heights as a squad.
I’m picturing a sequel to Bring It On, only with a tacky old piece of furniture teaching the girls their “jazz hands.”
Smells… normal. What a concept. Most people have no idea what their house smells like. You have to go away for a week to be able to smell your own house. Provided, of course, that your Tuffy-cat hasn’t left a surprise for you in the living room while you were at work.
I have never bought someone’s couch, but sometimes when I help people upgrade to a new computer, they give me their old one, which I fix up and sell on Craigslist. While working on their old computer, for a day my office smells like their house as the computer fans blow out their “normal smells”.
I think I’ll pass on the free magical couch.
Whenever people come over, I always worry that my house smells (likliest odors: cat or garbage) and I can’t tell because I’m used to it, and that my friends/family are too nice to say anything.
I tend to keep a scented candle near the entryway and can often smell it when I come home from work. I’m hoping that whatever the current scent is (e.g., currently it’s “fresh linen”) is my home’s “normal smell.”
That would be ok, as long as you don’t buy the cheap-crap candles at the dollar store. Then your house would just smell like cheap-crap candles. Perhaps a step up from “soak-food needing changing” but not much. I had an ex-in-law who burned those nasty things constantly. Trust me, her house did NOT smell like Fresh Linen.
Febreze and Yankee Candle wax tarts in ‘Clean Cotton’. I just sold my house and got constant comments (not to me, but to several realtors involved) about my house smelling nice and clean. Of course, cleaning constantly and never letting the cats in the house helped, I’m sure:-) Speaking of cats, don’t tell me that old-lady couch has never seen any ‘cat-action’ and all the vileness that that phrase implies.
JcT: Nah, these are the ones from Bath & Body Works, which is the cheapest I’ll buy (my favorites are from Tocca, which are not the most expensive – Rigaud, Diptyque and Acqua di Parma are pricey so I don’t usually get those).
I have frequent allergies, both seasonal and general, and so I constantly fear that I can’t smell when the house is odiferous. If I buy a nice candle when I can smell, I know that if the house smells like that, it’s OK.
There’s a really great chapter in Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons about the way that other people’s houses smell (and the way her house smelled when she was little). There’s a book I ought to mention in the “Books Worth Reading” forum thread…
Lynda Barry is brilliant. I second your putting it on the list.
I love that book and Lynda Barry in general. I always loved how my friends’ houses smalled when I was little and wondered if my house smelled good.
Here for the Lynda Barry love!
Normal smell for my house, could be a bird cage that needs cleaning, or the soak food in the cages that needs to be changed, or wet birds after they have their baths. None of these is really horrible but not what you want your couch to smell like. I guess if I ever get new furniture, I’ll have to dismantle this old one and burn it.
Now, my couch prior to the current one was hauled to the dump but the matching love seat is out in the cat’s living space. There’s a normal smell for ya!
Windrose, please don’t be upset if, after I upgrade you to your new computer, I refuse to take your old system with me. Um, none of those things sound like the kind of thing I would like my office to smell like for a day.
“Soak food needing changing” – that just doesn’t sound good.
JcT, I have to agree. Luckily, they only get the soak food once a week, and usually I pull it and clean the dishes within about 24 hours, before it goes stinky. But on a few rare occasions, I have seen things growing on the soak food when I pull it. Hot, humid days. Now there is a great smell!
Even if my old system didn’t smell bad, you should refuse to take it. My son keeps trading pieces out, and now mine will spontaneously reboot at the oddest moments, several times a day. 8/
Reseat the memory and all cards. It is most likely the memory. If that doesn’t work, try running the system with one stick of memory at a time; it could be a bad stick. If that doesn’t solve it, you may be looking at a CPU problem. That’s bad news, but on the bright side, everyone loves a new computer! 🙂
The submitter scans their craigslist entry before submitting:
“Let’s see…I’ve mentioned that it’s magical. That’s the main point. What else? I just cleaned it in 1972 so I guess I can add that it’s clean. I have the picture with the accordian so that they know the previous owner is awesome. Something is missing. Hm. Oh, of course! How does it smell? I guess since it’s clean it should smell clean.” *takes whiff*
“Well, that’s not too accurate, I don’t want to be misleading. I suppose urine is a normal smell for a couch that looks like this. Yep. `Smells normal.’ Submit!”
“I suppose urine is a normal smell for a couch that looks like this. Yep. `Smells normal.’ Submit!”
I think you nailed it, Emsy.
have to agree – that is comment of the day as far as i’m concerned. thanks again YSaC contributors for putting a smile on my face before bedtime.
just tried to edit and it wouldn’t let me – darn ‘putes! but also thanks to DRMK and Dan the Emu (yes, you are Dan) for these joyous little interludes in the life of a bored ex-pat mummy.
If you’re a mummy, I think I know someone who might have a slightly used sarcophagus to sell you…
I can’t help hearing, “Roll up, roll up, for the Magical Mystery Couch…”
Which probably comes as much from Dan’s exquisite title for this post as it does from the magic of the sofa itself.
The Magical Mystery Couch … is hoping to take you away …
That tune is now an earworm; thanks isaac!
I’m not sure if this means that there’s something very wrong with me but I kind of like this couch, especially with the vague pictures in the background. Look at the spooky skull-puppy on the right. And I like accordions in the right music like Gogol Bordello or Flogging Molly or Arcade Fire since they have about 17 members in their band, there has to be an accordian somewhere. Maybe the couch’s power is that it can summon alt-indie musicians?
To be fair, I own an accordion, and many many world musics use the instrument. The original “Rock Around The Clock” had an accordion.
But that doesn’t make it any less fun to make fun of it!
I rather like accordions.
The real test is, do you play the accordion? Do you make every guest who crosses your threshold listed to at least four songs? Going to a concert of your own volition is one thing. Being subjected to an impromptu performance is quite another.
He’s been known to play the accordion in web chat rooms.
He’s not allowed in many of those anymore.
The power to instantly summon a human being is the only ability solely entrusted to one (collective) entity- The Prostitute.
I got the same exact couch as a hand me down from my grandparents (I’d recognize that ugly pattern anywhere).
But my couch has two legs that magically disappear. I guess that makes my couch the Dumbledore to this couches Neville (apologies to Harry Potter fans)
Or… you could go to home depot and buy a new leg. Just a thought. Not nearly as classy as a book, though. And you might consider a stop at Jo-Ann or Hancock for some fabric to reupholster this eyesore as well. Might destroy the magic, though.
We had the love seat that went with this couch. We gave it to my aunt. I loved that love seat, and quite frankly, I’d take my chances with this couch, the love seat was just that good.
In Russia magical couches deliver themselves!!
Please please please never forget the “In soviet”, because that adds all the humor to the joke…
Correction- If you must tell that joke.
So it should be “in Soviet Russia, magical couch delivers you”?
Yep, Ed, because the excited/happy inflection is portrayed in Soviet.
That’s why it sounds funny. (So long as you haven’t heard ever possible variation of that joke..)
My parents had that *possibly exact* same couch when I was little. I have a distinct memory of getting in big trouble when I was 3 and took a nap on it and peed all over it. I just cannot get that pattern out of my head nearly 30 years later. Of course, I don’t remember ours being magical, so its probably not the *exact* same couch.
Not to mention that your couch would hardly smell “normal” with the pee and all…
It might in a house with children; one never knows.
That looks exactly like the couch my parents had when I was growing up. I even remember that one of the legs kept falling off. I used to love that couch. Never took me to Narnia or anything though.
I was offered a couch like that (but with all 4 legs) for sale when we temporarily lived in Austin in 2001. I saw an ad in the paper, and the price was right, so I called to ask about it. When the owner described the couch as having “water wheels and windmills” on it, I knew exactly what it would look like. We went out, saw it, and sure enough it looked just like I had imagined. They had another, less horrific couch, which I ended up buying instead. If only I had known that the hideous couch was magical!
A magical couch makes me think of that scene from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
“Eddies! Eddies in the space-time continuum!”
“Oh. And this is his couch?”
Bwahahahahaha!!
That leg didn’t disappear, the accordian ate it. Accordians are evil creatures.
This couch is magical. It is the magical beauty couch. Place this couch in your living room and all your other furniture looks better by comparison. Sit on it and you lost 50 pounds, grow 6 inches (I will let you decide where Igor) and look at least 10 years younger. Sit next to the accordion and you sound cooler by comparison also. This couch is a dream come true. The fact it only has three legs makes it not only magical but special. This is a special, magical couch. So special it can smell. A couch with a normal olfactory senses? Surely no one can pass this up. I’m getting my driver’s license picture on this couch. Next time I get pulled over I will be looking good.
I have my +4 Apron of Upholstering, a rather large set of needles, and Magic Fabric with nice plain stripes on it. If I can sneak up on this couch, and roll for initiative, I have a chance to win!
I was thinking – if it really didn’t stink, it might be successfully upholstered. Good luck with the striped Magic Fabric (great name, btw).
That’s the couch my grandparents had when I was young.
This looks like an intricate plan to get people playing the accordion (because who in their right mind would ever want to make THAT sort of noise?).
The plan is:
1) Get your unsuspecting guest to sit on the “magical” couch.
2) Smile to yourself as they uncomfortably try to edge away from where the accordion is sitting.
3) Distract them with an anecdote about that time when your uncle got a bit too friendly at Christmas.
4) As you approach the climax of the story, kick the book out from under the couch.
5) Your guest slides down the couch squeezing the monstrosity – and a long droning sound emanates from hell’s instrument.
6) You finish your story with “…and that’s what my wheezy uncle sounded like……..you know what? You should seriously think about taking up that concertina bad boy.”
I grew up with that couch. It’s been years since I have seen it. I wonder what happened to the chair that matched. Wow. That really brings back memories. Ugly memories, but just the same.
My husband had an eleven-foot-long version of that couch. To be clear – eleven feet, not elven feet. It was magical in that even the tallest people could lie down to nap.
Wow! and I thought that French Preventional furniture was bad. Now its been beaten by “old timey watermills and fancy houses”. Maybe the poster thinks the fancy houses are the gingerbread houses where witches live so of course is going to be a magical couch.
Thanks for the young newly weds scene – so close to Halloween and so funny – great start to a Monday morning.
Forget the couch – I want to meet the people who posted the ad! Why? Well, #1) They can post a CL ad with only minor grammatical errors #2) Have a sense of humor #3) Are, in some sense, literary… they did mention a book after all and #4) Someone in their household has musical talent. Who WOULDN’T want to hang out with them?!
And to put it all into perspective: they are not only GIVING away the couch [read: have enough intelligence not to dare ask for payment for it] but offering to bring it to you as well! I think perhaps they recognize the pure tastelessness that is their furniture.
Personally, I think it would be great fun to take the couch, put it in my house sans leg and watch company when they sit down on it. Great fun. And what a conversation starter.
This is the couch that a basement-dwelling serial killer tosses and turns upon every night in lieu of sleeping.
My husband’s grandmother has this exact couch, and a matching armchair…its scary enough as it is, even without the threat of unexpected house calls! It gave me the creeps…didn’t help that it’s kept in the unfinished basement..
Well, as for everyone’s grandma having this same couch; we STILL have it!!! The wifey’s parents must of bought the set new in the 70’s – Couch, Rocking Loveseat, and Rocking Swivel Chair. I can remember the set from the early 80’s when I was over for cub scouts. Can definately remember the pieces in constant use through the late 80’s/early 90’s as I was courting my sweetheart. When the in-laws finally moved in 2002 we acquired the whole set to bring to our house!
Now stop your laughing right there! We first sent them all out to get re-upholstered and they look as good or better than anything you can buy off the showroom floor today, and w/ a different cut & tuck of the armrests, you don’t have the dated floppy edges either. The kicker is: the uphosterers can’t stop raving of the quality of the frame, materials & construction — no crap pressboard or green twisty Chineese oak here!
Beauty (or uglyness) is only skin deep in this instance! This is a great deal here!!!!
Really!!!
That’s fascinating!!!!
The commentary on this post was side-splittingly funny– I almost fell out of my chair! Thanks for that!
Must concur. I believe this is my favorite commentary ever, and THAT is saying something.
When I first saw the closeup picture, I thought the mill was being attacked by a huge flying bug coming from the right.
And here I thought I’d finally gotten that image out of my mind. Believe it or not, my grandmother not only had this exact couch ( but with all its legs), plus a matching set of chairs, ottoman, and DRAPES!! I have been terrified of brown windmills ever since…
My mom used to have a couch JUST like this. Except ours had four legs and no accordion.
My uncle used to have this same exact couch, only the accordion was on the right.
Ok Isaac; that was officially the funniest comment of the bunch. Can’t stop laughing!
I’d like to propose that the “normal smell” might be coming from that Lady of Spain’s audible snatch. Just sayin’.
OMG my aunt and uncle had a couch EXACTLY like this… amazing.
Ha! We had this couch’s sister. She wasn’t magical. That explains a lot, actually… kind of like Petunia’s attitude toward Lily in the 7th HP book…