Expensive Comfortable Sex or Unnecessary Pretty Living Room?
Because I seem to be entirely unable to appropriately prioritize, I spent this morning dragging my kids to furniture stores in an attempt to replace my couch with a sleeper sofa that will allow me to comfortably have sex in my living room without disturbing any children and without damaging or unnecessarily bruising or cramping any body parts. My current couch, I don’t love to begin with. I bought it when I moved out of my ex’ house at his urging because he liked it best and it wasn’t the one I would have chosen. Also, it’s black, and I have a matching chair as well, so it makes my living room really dark. And then finally, both the couch and chair are on wheels that technically lock in place, but don’t do anything of the sort when coupled with hardwood floors, so my couch and chair are always skewed about the room as a result of any and all animal and/or human contact.
If I knew anything about feng shui, I’d say that this is some bad feng shui. But I don’t, so I wont. But it sure feels less than ideal.
When I found this couch it was love at first site. That couch embodies the perfection of all that I could dream of in a couch. I love the color, I love the style, the curves, the clean lines, the lack of any stupid puffy cushions. iIt’s such a beautiful couch. Except it’s not a fucking sleeper sofa!! I even went to the store to talk to them about it, to ask if there was a sleeper sofa option or to see what other options existed, but no, there are no other options, certainly none that compare to the gorgeousness of this couch. They tried to convince me to buy the couch anyway and then spend the money I would have spent paying for a sleeper sofa to buy an Aerobed instead and had the person making the sale not informed me that I might as well go get a cup of coffee because it would be about a twenty minutes wait, I might well have done just that.
But instead I insisted to myself that I did not need to make this decision at that very moment and drove home to again shun appropriate priorities to instead browse websites that might provide a workable sleeper sofa alternative.
After much browsing I finally settled on this sofa, the style of which I like (although not nearly as well as the other), and that comes in a comparable fabric (not the hideousness pictured). However, while it is indeed a sleeper sofa, it’s twice the price of the other.
I’m torn, folks. I’ve been recently reading Peter Walsh’s It’s All Too Much and one thing that really struck me is this idea of taking a look at each room in my house and thinking about what my dream is for that room, what purpose it should serve, and what it should feel like and look like in order to serve that purpose. My living room is the room where I spend most of my home time, it’s the place where I relax, it’s the place where friends and family spend time when they visit. I want it to be a room I love to be in, a room that looks beautiful and that I feel proud to show people. I want it to be a room that makes me smile with satisfaction every time I walk into it. I feel like having the beautiful couch-of-perfection in my living room would definitely bring me one step closer to feeling that way.
However, the only reason I was even considering buying a couch was because of the whole uncomfortable sex business. If there isn’t a practical purpose to be served, then I really don’t need a new couch. My current couch, while not one that I love, is certainly functional enough and having sex on one narrow, non-sleeper sofa is just as good as having sex on another narrow, non-sleeper sofa (and in fact, my existing couch might serve this purpose better thanks to its entirely removable and washable slip cover). I *could* go the Aerobed route, but I already have an air mattress and the stupid thing is a pain in my ass. Not literally, of course, but the hassle of inflating it (even with a pump) and then deflating and putting it away is not even remotely comparable to tossing off cushions and pulling the bed out of a sleeper sofa.
My one year old isn’t going to sleep in my bed forever…or at least I hope not…and at that point the sleeper sofa would be rendered pretty much useless…except in the case of overnight guests who I would prefer not to invite into my bed…and really, I never have any of those anyway. But in the meantime it really puts a limit on certain kinds of intimacy to never be able to comfortably cuddle with someone after, to never fall asleep together, to never invite them to stay over…unless they want to sleep on the narrow, uncomfortable couch while I retire to the bed containing my one year old.
So what do you think, folks? What should I do?
February 17th, 2008 at 5:55 am
Having been there with the uncomfortable living room sex, I vote for a comfortable fold out.
February 17th, 2008 at 8:12 am
Sleeper sofa! I never regretted having mine. I didn’t expressly buy it for the reasons you mentioned, but it DID come in handy, AND I used it often for other reasons as well. Plus, more overnight guests DID feel more comfortable expressing interest in coming to stay when they knew I had a good place for them to sleep.