Our new house doesn’t have a basement. That means we’ve had to purge a bit of furniture. And the first thing to go? Our old green couch. We bought that couch when we first moved to Zionsville. It’s been the recipient of every bodily fluid known to man — from dog slobber to baby diarrhea to toddler vomit. If it can be excreted by a living creature, it’s been on our couch.

And strangely enough, no one seemed to want it.

We set it out during the neighborhood garage sale hoping someone would determine that he or she couldn’t live without it. No takers.

We set it by the curb on a busy summer weekend hoping someone would throw it in the back of a pick-up truck. Nope.

We then went to swim across the street, proceeded to drink a bit, and promptly forgot about the couch on the curb. And you know what happened? Thunderstorm. Big one.

So now we were stuck with a waterlogged and unwanted couch.

Sunday morning, Chris and I began to talk about Plan C.

We glanced out at the couch and noticed we had some visitors. Apparently, texts had been going back and forth from neighbor to neighbor along these lines…

“If they’re going to look like a frat house, we might as well make the most of it.”

“You bring the beer and I’ll bring the trash bags.”

And so, our dear friends and neighbors sat on garbage bags to keep their tushes dry, brought their Coronas over (waaaayy too classy for a frat party, I know, but they didn’t have any Natty Light), and proceeded to have a little party on the curb. Chris and I joined them for one final green couch celebration.

When the party was over, we were still perplexed about how to dispose of the couch.

“Will the trash man take it?” I asked.

“They’ll only take trash in bags,” he replied. And I assure you that I actually saw a light bulb flash over his head as he uttered those magical words.

There had been talk amongst the frat party attendees of burning the couch in the middle of the street and blaming the fire on a passing car. I nixed that idea before it caught hold.

But Chris had a better idea. It didn’t involve fire, but it did involve power tools and general mayhem and destruction.

Bet you didn’t know that a couch could fit into four trash bags, did you?

And on Monday, Chris called me every ten minutes to see whether the trash man had come.

“Did they take it? Did they take it?”

I wasn’t even home.

“I promise I’ll call you with the victorious update the second it happens,” I said.

When the call was made, there was a great deal of fist-pumping. I didn’t see it with my own eyes, but after 23 years together, I know exactly what happened. Fist-pumping, happy dance. He’s easy to please, that one.