September 21, 2009 / Perspective / Parenting / Smartmom

All Smartmom wants is a new couch — is that so wrong?

By Louise Crawford

for The Brooklyn Paper

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Smartmom wants a new sofa. She’s had the same green leather couch for, like, 18 years. She and Hepcat bought it just after Teen Spirit was born in 1989 at Ikea.

In those first months of Teen Spirit’s life, Smartmom and Hepcat spent an inordinate amount of time at IKEA in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They were nesting in Park Slope and they needed everything: a crib, a changing table, sheets, kitchenwares, and a couch.

Hepcat spotted a couch one day on the IKEA showroom. It was called the Tulka and he thought it looked like “the Warner Brothers couch.”

“You know,” he said, “the couch in the Bugs Bunny cartoons? When you think of couch, this is what you think of.”

Smartmom sort of knew what he meant. It was an Art Deco couch with a curved back that did have a kind of classic look.

They tested it out. Sat on it. Lay down on it. Stared at it and finally decided to buy it and then waited eight weeks for it to arrive from North Carolina. And when it arrived, they were thrilled.

Skip ahead 18 years. That couch has fared remarkably well considering that the Oh So Feisty One used it as a trampoline for much of her early life. Not to mention the meals that have been eaten on it; the bowls of popcorn consumed and the number of teenagers who have slept on it — and Buddha knows what else.

Needless to say, the family is very attached to the green leather couch. Trouble is, its springs are starting to stick out. And the fabric underneath the cushions is ripping and it’s a holy mess down there.

For those reasons and more, Smartmom wants a new couch. Is it too much to ask for something new?

When Smartmom told Hepcat, Teen Spirit and OSFO that she was thinking of getting rid of it, everyone got mad. There was an atonal chorus of “What? No! Are you kidding? You can’t!”

“Why don’t we just get it fixed? Do you want me to throw you out when you get old?” Hepcat said.

Smartmom knows that fixing the green couch isn’t the answer. It would probably cost around $1,000 to have the couch fixed, and that’s practically what the couch cost in the first place.

Smartmom did some Web window shopping and found a couch she liked at a store called Room & Board

It was called The Andre. The blurb on the Web site said it was “reminiscent of mid-20th-century modern furniture with its beautiful welting, tailored button back and dark wood stretcher base.”

Smartmom fell in love with the Andre and stared longingly at the pictures. She looked at in every color and every fabric texture.

Then last week, Smartmom just happened to be on Broome Street and made a bee-line for the Andre. She lay down on it just as if it was in her living room. She wanted to make sure that she’d be comfortable reading the New Yorker on it; OSFO and Hepcat would be comfy working on their computers on it; and Teen Spirit’s friends would be comfortable sleeping on it.

Before she knew it, Smartmom was buying it.

When Smartmom got home she told Hepcat.

“You what?” he screamed.

Smartmom was hurting. She hated the fact that Hepcat was so resistant to change. After a few days of arguing, Hepcat got even more adamant about not wanting the new couch. Finally, Smartmwom cancelled the couch and told Hepcat that she was leaving.

OK, she wasn’t leaving him. She was merely departing for a long weekend in Michigan with a friend. They would discuss the couch again when she got back.

Read all about it next week.

©2009 Community Newspaper Group