Seriously?! Why do these things happen to me.

I found a couch on Craigslist the other day, and yesterday saw that they had dropped the price from $300 to $100, so I was forced to email asking where it was located and if it was still available.  I got a quick response from a nice woman who said that her home was being foreclosed on Friday (today) and the Sheriff would be there to put a lock on the doors first thing Friday morning, but if I wanted to meet her at the house Thursday between 3:30 and 5:00pm, the couch was mine.  Of course she lived all the way down in St. Paul, but I figured the 45 mile trip was worth it for a really nice couch I could put in the kids tv room at the new house.
Ty was kind enough to offer to help me, so we hopped in the van with a little time to spare and heading down to the "big city" to pick up our treasure.  The power steering line in the van has been leaking, and apparently an executive decision (which did involve me) was made that since it was on it's last leg at 267,865 miles, we would not put the $700 dollars into it to get it fixed.  That decision made the drive slightly more interesting since we had to pull off the highway twice to put power steering fluid in.  It was nice having Ty along, he was happy to hop out and pop open the hood, and even knew where to put the fluid in.  I also realized he is a tad bit of a worry wart, cautiously telling me to shut off the engine before popping the hood, and mentioning that we should pull off the highway at the earliest sign of any steering noise.  Traffic was heavy already at that point in the afternoon, but we managed to pull into the house around 4pm.
I was surprised, and saddened, to find an adorable little brick cottage up on a cliff surrounded by flower beds and old growth trees.  It was a heavenly little piece of real estate and my heart went out to the couch woman who was losing this place to foreclosure.  She walked out the door, wiping sweat from her brow and said "Hi, I'm Rochelle."  Her long dark hair was perfectly coiffed, and she looked to be a perfect size 2. I didn't feel quite as much pity as I had before.  Woman are really bitchy that way sometimes.  She let us into the house, which was about 80% emptied, with random large furniture items and framed wedding portraits laying around.  She said that she had gotten a divorce and was now losing the house.  I offered my condolences about losing such an adorable little place, she shrugged and said she had found a nice new place.  She seemed to be looking forward to making some new memories somewhere else, without the silver framed fairy tale wedding portraits that were scattered throughout the house.
She pointed to the couch, which looked even better then I'd imagined.  "You might have to take the bottom off, I think we did when we brought it into the house, but I just haven't had time to mess with it.  I was thinking if you twisted it around, it would probably fit through the slider though."  There was a 3 inch carved wooden piece that went around the bottom of the couch, and had each of the wooden legs attached. She also mentioned that if I was interested, I could have the little table next to it, and the rug.  How could I pass that up?  I gave her the cash I had in a wad in my pocket.  She took it, grabbed her purse, looked at her watch, seeming a little frenzied.  "I am really sorry, but I can't help you.  My son who is twelve" she then gestured to a height just above her own petite head, "has a school concert tonight and he has outgrown his shoes and I need to pick him up and take him shopping."  She was walking towards the door, and I was finding the whole situation a little odd.  "Feel free to take as long as you like, just shut the door when you leave."
She knew.  She had to know.  Ah, but I get ahead of myself.   Ty and I stood looking at each other after the door closed.  "We could do anything we wanted right now.  We could take anything. Why would she just leave us here?" he looked around uncomfortably.  I shrugged my response, "I guess she has lost enough that losing more doesn't really matter anymore."  I hoped it would make him feel more empathetic then opportunistic.  I started to flip the couch, pushing to towards the sliding glass door she had indicated we should use.  He grabbed it on the other side, and we pushed it to the door frame, rotating it left, then right, up then down.  Nothing.  There was no way in hell that this couch was gonna fit out that door.  I walked to a different door in the next room, it looked about the same width, but maybe?  I turned the handle and the dead bolt was locked, with a key.   By that point Ty had flipped the couch upside down and was wandering through the house, looking for a screw driver.   I helped him search, pulling open kitchen drawers, looking in the cabinet above the fridge, finding only twist ties and legos.   He ran out to the van and came in with a little socket set I had just purchased for myself.

 Duh, I can't belive I'd forgotten it was in there.  It was locked shut with zip ties and there wasn't a knife in the house.  We managed MacGyver it open with a bit of wire that we twisted until the plastic snapped.  We quickly got to work on the 4 inch long screws under the couch, and I was quite proud of how inventive we were.  I yanked on the wooden bottom, and it didn't budge, Ty walked over and yanked with me.  Nothing.  I'd removed the wrong screws.  We looked a little closer, and realized the screws we needed to take out were down deep dark holes that I didn't have a long enough socket to reach.  So I sent Rochelle a text message that said we had to leave to find a store and a screw driver, but would be returning, just in case she returned home while we were gone.  We hopped into the van, and drove down the residential street, having no idea of where some sort of hardware store was.  I stopped and asked someone walking their dog, and 4 miles later we had 2 screwdrivers and a van that needed more power steering fluid.  We got busy and spent the next 10 minutes unscrewing another 12 long screws and finally pulled the frame free.

Ty, busy unscrewing the frame

Over an hour later, finally!

View from the drivers seat though the van.

The couch was a beast to squeeze through the door, but we managed it, then got to the van and realized that the only ones who knew the secret to opening the broken hatch door were my hubby and Zoe.  We leaned the couch against the van so it wouldn't have to sit on the ground, then took turns trying to get the back to open.  Finally, after a frantically frustrated call to Jeremy, we managed to do it, and precariously jam the couch in.  The hatch wouldn't shut, so we rigged it up with a couple of tie downs (which I later realized Ty pulled all the way through to the front of the van and attached to my seat adjuster bar??!!?).


The trip home was in hot, muggy traffic.  It took almost and hour and a half to make the 45 mile jaunt.  We were both dripping in sweat and Ty's only comment other then mentioning dire thirst was "You're paying me for this, right?"