Okay, lets get this downstairs. The large man is referring to our large leather couch. It is big and cumbersome and he thinks I will be able to help him get it downstairs to the curb. We are donating this beautiful monstrosity to Goodwill. Their only stipulations are that there be no rips and that it be on the curb by seven am. 

The large man is my dear husband, who seems to have forgotten I weigh ninety-nine pounds.. I think the couch has me beat by a pound or two. I look at him pleadingly. It is ten o'clock at night. He has decided that this will be a good time to guarantee us a space on the elevator. 

We knock into the wall. I can't keep my end of the couch up. He tells me to back up and my arm is pinned between it and the wall.  Oh, geez, I'm sorry. Here, turn it around. 

I think he has lost his mind. We are loading a six and a half foot long couch onto an elevator that cannot accomodate a couch half its size. How  did they get it up here ten years ago in the first place? I am stuck in the elevator with this monstrosity hanging halfway out. The door is closing, it is making that emergency buzzing sound, I am getting crazy claustrophobic. 

Let me out, I beg. I gotta get out of here. I am panicking. The alarm is shrieking. My husband tells me to crawl over the couch and let myself out.

I am crying a little. My wrist hurts. But mostly I am scared that he is going to do this himself and it will fall over on him and crush him to death. He is a strong man, but this requires two strong men, I'm thinking.

Go ahead, he says nodding towards our apartment. I'm going to take it down the stairs.  The stairwell in our building is narrow. It will never fit. Please, wait until we can get someone to help you. You are going to kill yourself.  I am pleading with him.The whole thing just seems like a bad idea now. We had such good intentions. Goodwill gives their donations to people who really need it, and on top of that, this couch is slamming. When we first bought it, we felt very hip and chic. Black leather, very sexy, really. Ten years later, we aren't so hip or chic. We decided on something entirely different. But still it felt good to know the couch was going to another family, hip or not.

 He is determined to get it down the stairs. I ask him to just leave it until we get some help, but he assures me he can do it. I go back into the apartment. I have my eye on the phone in case I will need to call the paramedics. I feel sick at the thought of something horrible happening to him because of this stupid couch. I hear all sorts of noise from the stairwell.

Then there is silence.

The door opens a few minutes later, and he walks through it. His t-shirt is filthy and he looks like he has been in a fight. It's done, he announces.  I can't even imagine how he wrestled that beast down the stairs, and I don't even want to. I look at him and say, you are strong like bull!  We both start giggling like exhausted children. I have no idea where that phrase came from, it just came out of my mouth. We laugh until we are too tired to laugh anymore. I get into bed thinking about how surreal the whole thing really was. 

This morning on my way to work,  I see the leather monstrosity is gone. I am impressed. Goodwill has kept their word, and it has been picked up before seven am. 

I am at work when the phone rings. My husband is calling to ask if we have anything else for Goodwill. Just the couch, I tell him. But they've already picked that up. 

The couch was gone, but Goodwill didn't pick it up. No, the men tell him, we never picked up a couch. 

I tell my husband there is a bag of clothes, some rugs and some dishes that they can have. I had planned to take them to a nearby thrift store, but I can't send the men from Goodwill away empty handed.

I am sad that thieves came in the night and took the couch for themselves. It was wearing a big FOR GOODWILL PICKUP sign and everything. I"m sorry that someone stole it after all that. It should have gone to someone who needed it. It would have made a lovely Christmas present.

I wonder how the SOB's got it in their car.

They must have been strong like bull.