If you’re gonna rat me out to my boss then you can just go fuck yourself. And besides … there’s no way on god’s green earth I’ll ever tell you what I’m doin’ home on a weekday watchin’ the Maury show. Oh ya, there’s Springer too. And I’m praisin’ the lord god almighty for inventin’ the remote so’s I can flip from one t’other. I’ve got this beauty of a flatscreen I’ve mounted on the wall in my den with a bar fridge in the corner and my favourite sofa plunked square in front of everything so’s I can just lie there and watch and when I get thirsty I can reach over to the fridge and pull me out a can of somethin’ cold. Today’s the perfect day for this—warm enough so’s you can leave the window open and even enjoy a cool one now and then, but not so warm as you’d work up a sweat. Don’t want my sweat to mess up my favourite sofa. Funny how’s you can get attached to somethin’ like a piece of furniture. There’s nothin’ fancy about the sofa; in fact, I bet you’d never find anythin’ like it at the Art Shoppe—though I’ll never be absolutely sure seein’ as I pulled it from the garbage two streets over. They could’ve bought it from the Art Shoppe and just decided to change their decoratin’ scheme. Doesn’t matter where it come from anyhows. It’s mine now.
Beth an’ me, we had a real good argument when I first brought home the sofa. She said it was too big. Well then I managed to squeeze it into the den. So she said it was ugly. Well that’s just plain untrue. I’ve got a thousand or more years of Scotland to back me up on that one. Besides which plaid is soothin’—’cept maybe to look at when you’ve got a hangover. But otherwise it’s about as nice a thing to rest your eyes on as you could ever hope to see if you’re not countin’ Budweiser cans.
A couple weeks later she’s talkin’ to Nancy O’Neill from two streets over and Nancy’s talking about how they’re havin’ some renos done, how they had to move some furniture out onto the front lawn while they were doing some work, and how later that same day they turned around and found someone’d up and pinched their sofa. Well, I had a laugh ’bout that one too. Beth went on ’bout how I should be ‘fessin’ up, just tell them I thought it was out for the garbage pickup (which is the truth) and would never’ve taken the damn thing if I thought they’d still wanted it. But like someone or t’other says: possession is nine tenths of the law. Seems I can snooze easy enough on the sofa, so it must be true. I’d never be able to sleep easy on a sofa that wasn’t really mine. Beth—god bless her—she’ll never rat me out. Says it’s my responsibility. Says it’s up to me whether or not I sleep nights with an easy conscience. Still, as big-hearted as she makes herself out to be, she scowls at me whenever she passes the door to the den and sees me stretched out on the sofa clickin’ my remote.
So there I am, togglin’ between Maury and Springer when I find myself driftin’ off. Can’t say as I recollect quite what passed through my head as I slipped into la la land. Probably some combination of Jerry Springer and tartans because I dreamed I was standin’ there in a kilt while some piece of white trash accused me of fatherin’ her baby. A fight broke out an’ I guess I must’ve given the studio audience a view of somethin’ precious under my kilt because I wake up with a start, feelin’ a rush of wind up my crotch. Sunlight’s blarin’ down on my face, which is odd seein’ as I can’t remember it ever bein’ so bright in the den. An’ there’s the roar of traffic all around me. I sit bolt straight an’ look all around me. Holy cripes! There’s a transport truck bearin’ down on me with horns blarin’ an’ a big ugly bulldog grinnin’ at me from the grill.
Here I am sittin’ on my sofa in the middle of twelve lanes of highway traffic. I have barely enough time to get my bearings, then I roll off the sofa and scrabble my way to the median. As soon as I reach the concrete barrier, I hear a whump. I turn around in time to see the transport truck smash the sofa into a million little bits, with stuffin’ flyin’ up practically as high as the light standards, an’ springs sproingin’, an’ fabric shredded. I can’t believe what’s happened. Even when I try to explain it to the cops when they show up in their cruisers, I’m still havin’ trouble believin’ I coulda lost such a fine sofa when it seems like only minutes before, me an’ my sofa were mindin’ our own business back in my den plunked in fronta the TV set. I have no notion how I ended up in the middle of twelve lanes of traffic. Maybe it was a prank or a hoax or revenge, or maybe some weird sleep thing, or another dimension, or an alien abduction, or an alternate universe where everything looks the same ‘cept for transport trucks runnin’ through your livin’ room.
But I don’t suppose losin’ my sofa’s the worst of it. There I am, sittin’ on the median, watchin’ my sofa get hammered to bits, when I see a glint on the pavement just off to the side. I look over and see that it’s the plastic casing of my TV remote. So I hop off the median when there’s a break in the traffic and step out to get back at least somethin’ of mine. But just as I lean down to pick up the remote, I hear a horn blarin’ an’ I hear tires squealin’ an’ I look up just as a car swerves towards me. So I jump outta the way just in time. The car runs over my remote and smashes it into another million bits.
So now, not only can’t I lie down on my sofa, but I can’t change the channel no more neither.