The Birthday Couch

My Junior year in college, I was living with 3 other girls - great friends.  One November night, 2 of the 3 came home to our raggedy crappy apartment with a boom and a crash into our kitchen, which is where the back door opened up to.  My bedroom was right off the kitchen.

They started yelling.

"Lauren!!!  Come out!  Happy birthday!!!  LAUREN!!!!"

My birthday was a few weeks away, but with these hysterical ladies, who knows what they were up to?

Which is exactly what I was thinking when I opened my bedroom door to see A and G, triumphantly holding up their arms, yelling "TA DAAAAA!!!!"

And they joyously presented me with.....a crappy, raggedy, broken couch.  They were laughing hysterically.

They told me they found it, and that it took them about 2 hours to carry it home.  It was heavy.  And if I remember properly, there was snow and ice on the ground.

This could not have been easy to bring to me!  I laughed as they asked "don't you LOVE it?"

I thought it was so funny.  I thought it was less funny as it sat in our kitchen for about 2 weeks.

We finally moved it into our living room, and if memory serves, filled the completely hollowed out section of the couch with a bean bag chair, so people could sit on it.  This old gross college couch became a part of our home.

Fast forward to 2014.  One of these ladies, who is one of my closest friends, lives around the block from us with her family.  I have loved having her so close, as now we not only share wonderful memories of college fun and living together in Boston after graduation, but we also share friends, and our kids going to the same schools, and all that our adult lives bring to us.

How lucky am I to have her???

Anyway, last spring, Sean said to me "Lauren, that couch in our bedroom is pretty ragged.  Don't you think it's time we got rid of it?"

Suddenly, I got the best idea.  THE BEST IDEA EVER.

My dear friend A's birthday was coming up.  I knew just what to get her.

Our ripped up couch.  In her front yard.

It was so hard not to let the secret slip, as I often saw and spoke with her.  All I would say is, "I have the best birthday gift for you - you're going to love it!"

Finally the day came - A's birthday.  The couch is a really light Camp Couch, so after Sean helped me load it into the car, and after I knew she had left for work, I drove over to her house, and lovingly placed the couch near her front door.  With a birthday sign.

I giggled all day.  

And when A got home, I got a phone call where we both laughed and laughed and laughed.

I love those kind of laughs, don't you?

Spring is around the corner...I wonder what I should get A for her birthday this year?  MWAH AH AH!!!!!