Meet Cute #2: The Couch Lady
Have you ever met someone who can instantly ease your anxiety and worry? If yes, you’ll understand the rare gift of this story. If no…
Well, come with me. You will love meeting The Couch Lady!
I’ve been in the throes of moving. Goodbye suburbs! Hello…ummm -urbs? I’m not sure what to call my new neighborhood. It’s definitely more city than the cookie cutter houses but not quite a big-city. Just right for me.
Within 24 hours of listing my house, sold! No solid plan of where to move, I kicked into high gear. I needed to make a decision. I did not want to feel rushed. My spreadsheet of apartment pros and cons, offered reassurance that this has been a long time coming.
However, I needed a decision quickly, an anchor point for myself. Where would I land for the next year? Where would I replant my roots?
Once I chose my space I started panicking about…you guessed it…a couch! First world problems, I know. However, a couch is an essential centerpiece to my life. It’s where I sit for most of my at-home rituals. I sit there to…
Laugh with the ones I love
Journal mixed emotions
Write stories for others
Listen to God
Read books
Eat meals
Nap
Naps, a high priority for me! This girl must have a napping couch! NASA reportedly claims 26 minutes is the perfect napping time. I live my life by this claim.
For the last eighteen months I searched for a new couch. I can attest that cute couches do not equal napping couches. Not all napping couches equal cute couches.
I gave up on finding what I wanted. I settled for keeping my ten year old clearance couch with obvious pilling.
Until this move! I refused to move my old couch on this new adventure. Determined to make an adult decision I set to looking at couches, again. Mainly online in this pandemic. These days, shopping online seems the most accessible.
Can I just say…
Furniture is a commitment! I admittedly have commitment problems!
Until The Couch Lady stepped into my life.
Scheduled to move into my new apartment in three days, I still did not have a couch. Online searches left me overwhelmed, defeated, skeptical of the quality and shipping dates. Most dates said a couch would arrive three or four months from now. The thought of moving without living room furniture made my stomach hurt.
Since I basically live on my couch, being couchless felt a little like being homeless. In reality, I know it is not the same at all. But do you ever get fixated on something? If it does not begin to look hopeful you begin to question all of your decisions.
Maybe I was making a mistake selling not just my old furniture but selling my house! Maybe I should just stay put in that cookie cutter place with my old pilling couch. Life would be fine, right?
Giving up on online searches I headed to a brick and mortar store. The sales representative took me to the clearance section.
“Here, these are all available for pickup immediately. You can have a couch ASAP!” he looked at my tense eyes with as much enthusiasm as he could offer.
I think he could sense my skepticism. No one else has what I’m looking for. Maybe it’s just not out there.
He left me to look around. I tried to make myself like a modern couch. I circled it like a hawk, eyeing it from every angle. I sat on it, laid on it, and flipped the cushions over. I eyed it from far away and up close. I walked around the showroom floor just for time to think.
Panic set in. My stomach ached again. Knowing I needed a couch, knowing I did not love this one, I did what any girl would do. I Facetimed my cousin half-way across the country and made her shop with me.
This Facetime call ended with me sitting on that halfway likable couch, tears brimming in my eyes.
My cousin said, “Here’s the new game plan. Ditch the online search for good. Go to local brick and mortar stores, not chains. Tell them your situation. Give yourself permission to invest in a quality couch. Deal?”
“Ok, deal.” I swallowed back my tears as another couple circled the clearance section eavesdropping on my Facetime call.
I sped over to the only local furniture store remotely close. They closed in 15 minutes. I did not want to bother anyone. I just wanted to sweep through their clearance section to see options available.
Revving my little car through the snow piled parking lot in -13 degree weather, I jumped out and bustled inside. The guy vacuuming the showroom floor looked up at me in surprise.
Enter The Couch Lady! She whisked over to me, “Hello, what can I help you with?”
Slightly frenzied I spit out, “Your clearance section. I need to see your clearance section.”
“Oh, ok. It’s just back this way. There’s lots of chairs, recliners, stools, mattresses…”
“Couches? I’m looking for a couch!” I hurriedly interrupted her.
“Oh my, we don’t have many of those. There’s a brown one” she said hesitantly.
“Gray, I’ve been looking for a gray couch. Everything I find online won’t get to me for four months and I don’t trust the quality of it and I’m moving in three days and I need a couch. It’s such an important piece for my life…” I rambled on. Panic spilling from my pores.
She looked at me a bit befuddled and amused. “Oh, well you can have anything on our showroom floor today! That’s the difference between us and them” hinting at the place I had just come from.
Tears brimmed at my eyes again. “You can what?” I looked at her amazed. “You can sell a new couch to me right here, right now?”
She smiled and nodded, “Yes. What’s your price range?”
I told her my range. Suddenly The Couch Lady whisked me around the showroom floor making me feel hope for the first time in awhile. Maybe there’s a couch I could commit to when everything else felt disappointing.
“There’s that one” she pointed at a couch, “but in the light it will come across too…brown…” I briskly followed her around like a puppy dog.
“And that one, but we can do better. Or that one…” She got up nose close to the fabric, “ummm, no this will be too taupe.”
On to the next section. Before you know it, she had narrowed down the entire store to two couches. It’s like she knows I function best with limited options! How did she know?
Closing time had come and gone. In my whirlwind trip around the store, The Couch Lady could read the excitement on my face. She could also tell I was not ready to commit to a certain couch.
“Take pictures of the couches. Think about it. Come see me. I work tomorrow and can get you set up.” Her enthusiasm matched mine.
I exhaled, “Ok!” with relief as I took a few pictures of these beautiful hope filled couches.
She handed me her card. Judy the name read across the top. Full of gratitude I said, “Judy, I’m Brooke. You have no idea how much you’ve just lowered my anxiety in these 15 minutes. I cannot thank you enough.”
She gave me that bewildered and amused look again, followed with a little laugh. “You just whisked in here and I’m so glad you did! You gave me so much life at the end of my day!”
This my dear friends, is a “Meet Cute” I will forever hold close. The timing was a God-send for my frazzled frayed nerves.
I returned to the store the next day and committed to the perfect napping couch. It holds all the cuteness I could possibly want! Judy hooked me up with delivery the day before I actually moved in. Plus the extra pillows with zippers so I could change out the pillow cases.
At the end of the entire transaction we stood in the center of the store swapping our stories of this “Meet Cute.” I could tell it held a special place in her life too. She needed it just as much as me. To sum it all up, we exchanged numbers and planned a coffee date for after I finished moving.
I can’t tell exactly why this “Meet Cute” at this moment. I know it was coated in love and serendipity. Judy and I both believe it was deeper than a chance encounter. It was God given. We shall see what other blessings it might hold.
If you don’t have a Couch Lady in your life, message me and I’ll send you Judy’s way. Her genuine compassion held so much care for me in my time of need. May she bless you just as much as she blessed me.
Perhaps, you have your own version of The Couch Lady. Treasure that rare “Meet Cute.” If you can, tell them how they blessed you.
Being brave enough to share how people meet us in our times of need, it’s what makes the ordinary 15-minutes-before-closing “Meet Cute,” life changing.
