Dinosaurs and Derrieres

A Nesting Woman Will Always Win


The very first piece of furniture my wife and I owned was a sofa. Eighteen years later, we still had it. I really loved that old sofa; it was very comfortable and had molded itself to fit my bodily contours. That was no small feat.

My dog also loved that sofa. Her greatest joy in life was to wait patiently by the back door and when it was opened a crack, run full speed into the living room plunging her one foot tall, forty pound frame happily into the corner of the sofa.

With all of that love and happiness, you would think the old sofa had a revered place in the Russ household. That would be a logical conclusion, but it would be wrong. You see, my wife hated it.

I made a valiant attempt to save the old sofa. I bribed my kids into voting to keep it. Evidently, my vote and the votes of the kids as well as the dog comprise only forty-nine percent of the total votes cast.

Failing at the ballot box, I next tried psychology. I watched Oprah once. I gave each of us a sheet of paper and suggested my wife write the single-most reason why she hated the old sofa and I would write the number one reason why I loved it. My wife wrote she hated the sofa because it was eight feet long and looked like a big brown dinosaur.

Now I had her exactly where I wanted her. She hated the sofa for the same reason I loved it. I loved that sofa because it was eight feet long. I could stretch out on it and the dog could comfortably fit in the corner. There was plenty of room for everyone.

I decided it was time to deploy my big weapon in this battle. I reached deep into my bag of tricks and pulled out the weapon of logic. I was going to utterly destroy my wife’s argument with this awesome weapon.

I confidently got out my calculator and noted you could fit two additional people on an eight foot sofa. Also, you could re-upholster the old sofa for half the cost of a new one. It made economic sense to keep the old sofa. You could get more derriere for the dollar with an eight foot sofa. Surely no normal human being could deny such cold calculating logic. I was feeling pretty smug with the knowledge I had saved the old sofa.

The day they delivered the new sofa, I was sulking in my recliner. Life was now horrible. My dog became a nervous wreck. She ran into the house, full speed as usual, and jumped where the old sofa used to be. Unfortunately for the harried dog, the new sofa was there now. Somewhere, about mid-flight, my wife saw the dog and…the English language contains no word which can accurately describe the sound which came out of my wife.

The poor dog, sensing she had made a serious faux pas, cowered and did the one thing all dogs do in that situation. She lost control of her bladder.

As for me, I am afraid of that sofa. I just sit in the recliner and tell the kids and the dog to fend for themselves.

Shortly after the great sofa war, my wife told me something very disturbing. As I was sitting in my refuge, my recliner, she looked at me and said, “Honey, that old recliner is so big, it looks like a dinosaur and besides, it does not match our new sofa.

Randy Russ
http://www.randyruss,com/