The Revival

The other day Tanya and I had a few moments to spare in the afternoon and decided to spend them DI hopping. For those of you unfamiliar with Utah or the DI, this practice is not too dissimilar from bar hopping; however, instead of the ghastly practice of becoming incoherently drunk from bar to bar, one goes from thrift-store to thrift-store in search of good deals and hidden treasures; it being nonetheless addicting.

We entered the DI on 45th South and made our way directly to the As-is furniture section, having found a potential apartment earlier that morning, and thus being eager to find conducive furnishings to our hopefully soon-to-be apartment. (That was a rather confused sentence but I think I'll let it stand.) After having passed several interesting and rather peculiar seating options - including a blue and yellow plaid armchair - our attention was drawn to a love seat/sofa combo in the back corner. It was a grey herringbone pattern with a purple throw pillow. The style was rather 1950's and seemingly very conducive to our potential lodging. There was not, however, a price listing. We approached an employee and inquired as to the price of such an exquisitely vintage piece of couchage. We were informed that he would need to go and speak with his manager, and he promptly disappeared. We sat down on the couch again and began to discuss its pros and cons. A few minutes went by, and it became clear that the attendant was not going to return. I got up and went and to ask another employee where we could locate a price. There ensued a slight confusion which involved several members of the staff. While this was going on Tanya and I happened to glance into the As-is yard outside of the main complex. There, in all of its splendor and glory, was a yellow 1970's revival Louis XVI love seat.

I was immediately taken with it's slender line, stylish woodwork, and vintage charm. Tanya too was impressed. We looked at each other, and had this been a movie, this is where the sound track would have kicked in with some sappy vocal music akin to the Hallelujah Chorus. We approached the piece with a quick step, and in total oblivion to all other couches. I took an initial seat and was impressed by the firm, yet subtle, feel of the couch against my bottom. We circled it, remarked that there was only slight damage to one arm, and immediately put it on hold with the attendant.

We only had an hour hold, and there was no way I was going to get a love seat into my Honda coupe, so I had to call my mom to switch vehicles with her for her mini-van. The mini-van is in and of itself a piece of work. The side door refuses to close and whistles profusely as you drive it. The seats are usually jammed into some sort of odd position, and it is generally stuffed full of moving boxes - my mom has been planning to pack the basement for the last year and never gets past gathering the boxes which rest, unused, in the van.

After swapping cars, and a few reprimands from Tanya for my tailgating, we made it back to the DI. We paid for the couch and then proceeded around back to collect our new treasure. I enlisted the aid of one of our formerly confused attendants to help me load the love seat into the van. After a bit of manly heaving, we mounted the couch into the trunk and which became stuck up against the middle seat. My initial response was to just tie the hatch down and leave it as it was. Tanya, being a clearer thinker than myself, decided that she would just move the middle seat. This was a little more difficult than first anticipated, but after a bit of re-arranging, lever pushing, odd positions and grunting - mostly on my part - she and I were able to lift the seat enough to enter the couch.

We drove the couch to my parent's house and unloaded it into the family room, where it now stands in triumph in between my dad's antique revival couch and the DI sofa sleeper they picked up for $10. The next day Anneliesa came home for the weekend. She languidly walked into the family room, stopped, stared, contorted her face as if at a fowl smell, then exclaimed: "What is This?!"