To the Furniture That Arrived in the Snowstorm and Barely Fit Through the Door

Today you look as if you have always been here, as if, in 1929, when they built this house, they built it for you. Your chocolate brown warms the room.

Music sounds better and pizza tastes better on the new sofa

But yesterday, the struggle, the battle, the war that was getting you home and through the door was, as the kids say, epic. The snowstorm was so bad, Keith could not back the U-Haul 5 yards up to the warehouse to have you loaded. He had to wait until it settled down, the clocking ticking off the rental time. Finally loaded, on the drive home, he watched drivers slide off the road like baby ducks following whatever guides them.

Still, he makes it home. And you are wrapped in heavy plastic to protect from the elements.  We measured the door at the smallest width and we measured you before we bought you, so we thought we would just carry you through the door, piece by piece. The first two pieces made it seem easy.

But you are a sectional, which means you have a funky corner piece with odd angles for a couch. That’s where the trouble starts. If there is a world record for swearing, it was broken. If there is a world record for ratio of swear words to non-swear words in a sentence, it was broken. If there is a record for dragging out one swear word into one long resounding call to the universe, it was broken.

I have already put the old furniture on the curb. It’s covered in snow. If the new couch doesn’t come in, we'll be sitting on the floor.

We have to take the door off the hinges. We have to push and smush and beg and plead and formulate and calculate, but finally, the whole corner piece is in the door. The last two pieces aren’t easy, but are not as hard. The snow never relents. 

Our rental truck stuck in the road. Took 4 men to dig it out.

The last task is to take the truck back. The snow is several feet deep and the road has ice grooves that make tracks in the road, tracks you have no choice but to follow. And he gets stuck. Three neighbors, a lot more swearing, and some ice smashing and finally the truck is free.

By the evening, the room was put together. Old chairs rearranged around you. We turn on Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” and light candles. We order a pizza. We talk about writing and and all the things we love about words. We feel the space we are in as new again. This year we will be married 20 years.