Dog Days

Now before you look at this picture and go "Awww....a sleeping dog.", let me tell you something.

This dog knows who's home at any given time. She is only spread out on the couch because she knows Hubby's not home. If she even senses that he's in the house, she's on the floor in a heartbeat. But the rest of us are bad people. We don't really care if she lounges on the sofa. Heck, we like to, why shouldn't she?

But the even bigger picture is that this is the couch that was in my childhood home. It sat in the front room, the one we never dared walk through, much less use the furniture in. This couch joined the family before I did. It was hauled from MA to MO in the middle of the 1960s and is in the background of all the formal pictures taken in my house as I grew up. We sat on it once a year, as we opened Christmas presents. Then we knew to stay off for the other 364 days of the year.

When my mom died in the mid 1990s and dad was cleaning out the house, he offered to let us have the couch. We had a thrift store version in our living room at the time so we said, "sure!". We knew we'd find our own couch some day and this one could fill in until then.

Years passed, money came and went. There was never justification for buying a new couch. This one still worked fine and there were much more pressing needs in the household.

We moved, then we moved again, then we moved again, and the couch came with us. Our babies had diapers changed on it. They watched endless episodes of Barney as they hung off the arm rests.

It made a nice lounging spot on days they were home sick from school and never groaned as all six of us piled on it for family movie nights. We showed that couch what everyday life felt like, after it had spent most of the 70s and 80s in quiet isolation.

Now that couch is a favorite hang out for our chunky poodle. She doesn't care that the cushions are all squished and hardly match up with each other anymore. She doesn't care that on any given day there is a line of kitty fur along the top edge because the cat has claimed it as his perch.

She knows none of the history of this couch she enjoys so much. I have to think my mom would be pleased, not angry, that this piece of furniture she picked out so many decades ago, has survived another generation.

She had a pretty big heart. I think she would totally understand about mostly obedient dogs who just like a soft spot to nap every now and then.