“Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” ~ Dr. Seuss

When you move in with someone, there is the "mesh". Your stuff and their stuff has to cohabitate.

Understandable.

As time goes on, you BOTH get stuff together. Your taste changes. You evolve and hopefully improve. And then the day comes when that one item, that you have overlooked for years cuz it's just part of the environment, is an eyesore.

My overstuffed, plaid chair had reached that point.

It took up a HUGE space in the office of our house. It was comfy, don't get me wrong. It was one of the new items of furniture I bought when I moved from my folks and went out on my own. It looked fantastic in my cute lil apartment in Culver City, CA. We watched TV together. I ate my breakfast in it, every morning, while watching the Today Show. It's hugeness drew in stacks of party goers, who would cram into it, when I would have the friends over for a BBQ. I took a few naps in that chair as well. It's over-stuffed, wonderfulness, a catcher's mitt of snuggly comfort.

When it traveled the United States and ended up here in NY, it was a main part of our apartment living room. Then we moved to the house. Yes, it still held a spot in the living room. Then we decided our 1930's colonial needed a more sophisticated look. The plaid chair wasn't part of that.

Up to the office it went. And to good use! It was my video game chair. It was the "What chat doin' on the computer?" chair. It was still beloved.

Then.....things started to happen to it. Like a neighborhood that suddenly doesn't seem as nice. Like a bad element that moves in next door and the property value goes down.

The cats took it over!

My, once best friend, was now a cat napping place. Which kept you from just flopping down in it. There was always a cat in it OR enough fur in it to DIY a cat clone.

Then we started hearing it...the late night scratchings. Like the flesh being flogged from the back of a tortured soul. "RIIIIIIIIPPP! TUG TUG RIIIIIIIPPP!"

Morning would find the fabric split and the stuffing popping out like bleeding wounds. The chair injuries would drive me into a rage against the cats. But it never mattered. They didn't care. It would begin again the next night. On occasion...right in front of my very eyes. With a look on the cats face like, "What are you going to do about it?"

They were right...I was helpless to come to the aid of my old friend. Didn't matter what I sprayed on it, or covered in tin foil, or surrounded it with nip infused scratching pads with "as seen on TV" guarantees.

If that wasn't bad enough....the ultimate shame came when the hairballs flew. Nasty lil gifts of brownish hell. The liquid, long soaked into the cushion, leaving the matted stomach substance, high and dry and stuck to the fabric weave. Marks that will never quite come out. Like bruises on the fabric.

Ol' plaid had reached the end. No amount of cleaner, or trying to repair the torn fabric would ever fix it. And in the darkness the cats waited. Waited for me to fix up ol' plaid, so they could, once again, torture it.

So with a heft and a push and a roll down the front yard to the curb, I walked away. Leaving my friend outside, on the sidewalk, leaned up on telephone pole.

17 years together. My longest relationship, to date.

We left for dinner and, upon our return, low and behold, ol' plaid was GONE! A new home? A new family? A new life? Who knows where adventure will take that chair. It was good to know that it would live on, in some form.

Goodbye ol friend. May you find a house, free of cats.