All Things Redneck: The Couch

It started out rather innocently. Doing a favor for friends who were moving, by taking their white leather couch. Win-win situation. We get a couch, they unload one quite painlessly. But what comes next is where things get dicey. On the day of the move, the couch gets placed on the front porch, with the intention that it would be put away momentarily. A day passed. A week passed. A month passed. And still, the couch was on the front porch. I began to worry the first day that it appeared on the front porch, knowing that my family’s red neck would show itself, and that couch wasn’t going anywhere. Sipping morning coffee previously took place in the dinning room, but with a comfy couch on the front porch, a morning migration took place. Coffee on the porch couch. Lunch on the porch couch. Afternoon nap on the porch couch. Reading a book on the porch couch. Wine on the porch couch. Family and company gatherings on the porch couch. That couch is a part of this family and its presence on the porch seems unfortunately permanent.

Evidence

At first there was a bit of embarrassment, from the family, about this tacky eyesore. But that embarrassment masks the feeling we don’t want to admit to any one: That we secretly love how comfy and convenient it is to have inside furniture, outside! I pretend to hate the fact that couch sits on my front porch, greeting all visitors with an overwhelming statement of ‘unrefined, back-woods country folks.’ I make comments how we need to get rid of it, but I secretly don’t want that thing going anywhere! Does that make me one of them? Am I just as redneck as I accuse my family of being?

The tipping point took place one afternoon when I pulled up the driveway to see this sight: Jason, in his dirty work clothes and boots, sitting on the couch, on the porch, with a beer in one hand, a truck-trader in the other, and a gun propped up against the couch next to him (which was obviously for shooting the overpopulation of, well, that parts confidential). I should expect this sort of behavior. I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but for some reason I was. I just stared for awhile. The best part about it, he had no idea why I was staring, or what the big deal was. Uh-huh. Wow.

View from the porch couch

When people see the couch for the first time, they definitely hesitate at first, and I know what they thinking about us. But then we kinda give an explanation of why its on the porch and then they sit down, and look out at the view of our property. Boom. They are convinced. All the judgments they may have had fade away and they secretly wish they had the guts to have a couch on their porch.