I texted my husband a photo from the thrift store, and he immediately called me back.
“Don’t you dare.”
“It’s forty-seven dollars,” I said.
“It looks like someone skinned the Grinch and turned him into furniture.”
I bought it anyway.
A massive green velvet couch that clashes with absolutely everything we own. It takes up half our living room and looks like it came straight from a 1970s disco basement.
But my husband has been sleeping on our old beige couch for three years because his back is too bad to make it upstairs most nights. That couch was flat, stiff, and about fifteen years past dead. He wouldn’t let me replace it—said we couldn’t afford it, that he was fine. But I’d find him at 2 AM, awake, staring at the ceiling, unable to get comfortable.
So I started searching thrift stores, hoping for something soft, big, and cheap enough that he couldn’t argue. Then I found it—this ridiculous, oversized green thing hiding behind a rack of old dining chairs.
When he came home, he stood there shaking his head. “It’s… so green.”
“It’s soft,” I said. “Lie down.”
He did. Sank into that velvet like he was being swallowed by a mossy cloud. He didn’t move for twenty minutes. Then whispered, “I hate how much I love this.”
He’s slept on it every night since. His back doesn’t hurt. He actually smiles when he stretches in the morning.
It’s ugly. It doesn’t match. But it gave my husband his rest back. And for forty-seven dollars, that makes it the most beautiful couch in the world.
