When my wife and I went to buy couches recently, we found that there are basically two kinds of couches: the ones we like, and the ones we can fit in our living room.
Why did we buy couches? Well, one theory is that people always want to buy new couches when their children are soon to start dating. Because that way, people can walk in and say, “Oh! Your kids are dating!”
“Not yet. We have to pay off the couches first.”
And that way, guests will bring it up themselves, and you don’t have to bring it up with every single person who walks into your house.
“My kids are dating… My kids are dating…”
“You told me five minutes ago. I just went out to get something.”
Of course, the reason that people say they buy new couches is that this way, the mechutanim can come in and be impressed, and say, “They have money, obviously. They have such nice couches!” in a living room that is otherwise falling apart. “They’re going to be able to afford a nice wedding!”
So #1, I don’t know if you know this, but couches are cheaper than weddings.
Or maybe you don’t buy the couches to impress them, but just because your kids have been using your couch as a napkin for 20 years, and you don’t want to deal with the perspective mechutanim sitting there in silence and wondering what that stain is that they’re sitting on.
People put such stock in couches. There’s no other piece of furniture in your house that you specifically have to replace so your children can start dating. You’ve had your dining room table just as long, but you cover that with a cloth. No one thinks, “Hm, they’re the type of people who put a tablecloth over their dining room table. What are they trying to hide?”
Puzzles, mostly.
I would say that the main reason we got new couches was that our old couches definitely needed replacing. L’chol hadeios.
We had this set of microfiber couches for about 17 years that were beyond falling apart. And then, about 15-16 years in, we discovered that the framing between each cushion was touching the floor.
So at some point during corona -- when we weren’t going to furniture stores and no one was showing up at our house anyway -- my wife enlisted our son to help her take it apart. Say what you will, but people sitting on a couch that you fixed yourself 16 years in says something about your family, as far as shidduchim.
“Tell me something about her brother.”
“He fixed the couch.”
“Tell me about her parents.”
“Her mother also fixed the couch.”
“Not the father?”
“He mostly took notes.”
To be fair, she didn’t directly ask for my help; she said, “You can continue working.” At my work desk. Which is in the living room. Which was also where she was working on the couches.
So we flipped the couch over and opened up the bottom, which is sealed with a million staples. It turns out that all of the vertical wooden supports had collapsed because the straps holding them up had ripped because the wooden pieces holding them broke. Or something.
And that’s why my wife and I went couch shopping. The main criteria was that they would be something that would fit in our smallish living room, but my wife wanted to go to stores in person so we could see which ones we found to be comfortable. Though what are the chances that we would both be comfortable on the very same couch? Unless they’re all comfortable?! I don’t know.
Really the main thing was that she would be comfortable, because what she does on couches is sit down with a magazine fall asleep waiting for me to come home from shul. What I do on couches is spend five minutes between getting up from my Shabbos nap and going to Mincha chastising the kids because I told them to wake me an hour earlier so we could learn.
We also had to make sure we could get out of the new couches. This wasn’t at the absolute top of the requirements list, but our old couches were so low near the end that everyone had to be pulled out of them, sometimes by a chain of lighter people. The way we made it work was that we have fewer cushions than people, so there was always at least one person who was not on the couch and was available to pull the first person off.
That said, couch shopping is draining. It’s like every store you walk into, you immediately feel the need to sit down. Multiple times.
Buying couches is an entirely different kind of shopping. It’s not like you’re walking around with a cart, filling it up with your maybes, and you’ve got a couch sticking out at a weird angle and you’re trying to figure out how to fit the loveseat in the cart too.
“Could we put it underneath?”
“I think we should have gotten a second cart.”
No. You come into the store and you sit down. Then you walk five feet, and you sit down. And then the salesperson comes to you and says, “Can I help you? Let me find you somewhere else to sit down.” And you say things like, “I’m comfortable, but not comfortable enough; let’s sit somewhere else.” It’s like you’re the rudest guest.
If I had to compare it to anything, I would say that the whole couch-buying process is very similar to the process of buying a car that doesn’t move, and has a way more diverse choice of fabrics. But otherwise, it’s very similar. A salesperson latches on to you, and you get to test drive them, and then once you decide on one, they pretend to give you an extra discount that they’re giving everybody, and they try to sell you all kinds of warranties. The main difference is that a car dealership has maybe seven types of cars, whereas in the couch store, there are a hundred different couch setups all facing different angles, and you have no idea which ones you’ve sat on and which ones you haven’t, and you’re all turned around, and you were kind of hoping the salesperson was keeping track, but in at least one store we found out that he was not. And each couch has a helpful name hidden somewhere on the label, like Amanda or something, as if you know someone who says things like, “Why don’t we go sit on Amanda?”
“You name your couches? That wasn’t on the resume.”
And then then the salesperson walks you over to yet another couch, which may or may not be one he’s walked you over to before, and he says, “You’ll like this one!” and you sit on a couch for a bit in silence, pretending you’re at the doctor’s office. Or the salesperson waits patiently while your wife sees if she can go to sleep.
SALESPERSON: “Well?”
ME: “It takes her time to fall asleep.”
Mattress shopping is even weirder.
And then you pick your couch, and they give you a delivery date, and then you come home and read the reviews. The number one complaint I saw in the reviews was, “I can’t get comfortable -- the one I got is a lot stiffer than the one in the store.” And I’m thinking, “You don’t want to know why that is.”
You definitely have to have some idea of what you want before you go. Do you want a sleeper? A recliner? A sectional? The salesperson showed us one reclining couch that was operated by a button, and we both sat there and played with the button and didn’t have the heart to tell her that this was absolutely useless for the main day of the week that we’re going to use the couch. Can we put the button on a timer? That’s going to freak out the guests.
One thing that the salespeople did offer us was those L-shaped couches, which require an immense amount of planning to get them through a doorway. And the nice thing is that they sit just as many people as a regular sofa and a loveseat, plus there’s that one weird corner seat for a person that requires zero leg space but an abnormally large seat cushion.
The salesperson was also pushing something called an apartment couch, which she kept trying to tell us was the same size as a regular couch. If a loveseat holds two people, and a couch holds 3, what does an apartment couch hold?
“Also three,” she said.
HOW?!
It’s 3, but like an airplane 3. With no armrests. It’s ideal for large groups looking at photo albums.
Anyway, the couches we got are a color that the salesperson insists are navy, but which are actually black.
It doesn’t look blue to anyone. Not one of our guests have thought that it was blue. But it was either that or a color that the company called greige. So now what color it is is a conversation topic, for us to switch to in case the mechutanim start asking about why all our shades are broken.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
