The Couch Coup

Recently, I accomplished the greatest feat in my young career as a consumer: the Couch Coup.

Flashback to October 2008: Will and I had just moved into our new apartment and were bewilderedly wandering through the Macy's furniture department on a desperate quest to find the perfect couch. Having already been, well, pretty much everywhere, we had discovered that there is no such thing as instant gratification when it comes to couch shopping. Apparently, we had our assumptions incorrect: find apartment, then find couch. Not so. Word of advice: go into Crate & Barrel six months before you plan to move, then maybe - maybe - your couch would be ready by the time you moved in. Horse-hockey. Exasperated, down-trodden, tailbones aching, it began to feel like we'd be sitting on the hardwood floors forever, and we were at the point where we'd be happy to take any darn couch in stock. And so we did ...

Flashforward to circa now: the couch sucks! There are few days that go by without me verbally expressing my hatred for the boxy boat anchor. I felt it was time for action. My new couch longings were largely catalysed by an overwhelming desire to organize our living room furniture, which is challenging in our awkwardly shaped, narrow rectangle of a room. Furthermore, the genuine issue was also the rapidly sinking cushions, slovenly appearance, and my inability to sit on it without back troubles. Dilemma: all back comforts aside, how does one justify obtaining a brand-new, preferably significantly smaller couch when you pretty much just paid off the old one? In other words: WWRD? What Would a Recessionista Do? Exchange it! After two weeks of daily phone calls to the their store (and sometimes their India-based call center), one visit from a technician who wanted to open the cushions and stuff them (like reverse lipo for a couch), and one very impassioned, logically-fallacious appeal to Macy's sense of tradition and quality, I made it happen.

Zip! Out with the old and in with the new this Saturday. Goodbye boat anchor, hello gorgeous! Full refund on the old couch and money to spare on our exchange credit. Who needs a new cake tip set? You guessed it.

P.S. Is it a bad sign that this is the most exciting thing that's happened in recent memory? :)