The Couch Boys of Summer
As many of you know, I write a monthly column in my local paper that I often share here too since so many of you live far away and won’t be picking up our free weekly paper at the grocery store or coffee shop. This fun piece below ran here this past week in The Valley Breeze.
Summer break inevitably means that kids—especially teens—are looking for ways to make money and this is the reason I currently have a garage full of couches. The plan was to scan FB marketplace for people giving away used couches to anyone willing to come pick them up. And then sell them. Since one of the boys had access to a truck and a trailer, it seemed like a perfect plan. Rumor has it that my son was the mastermind behind the operation.
I was working on my laptop in the kitchen one Saturday afternoon when a text came in from my oldest son—he was at work but the text asked that I open the garage because his friends would be coming by to drop off some couches. It was my understanding that our garage was needed because the boys who had gone to pick up the couches had already filled up their own garages.
Naturally, I opened the garage for the “couch boys.” About twenty minutes later I heard the sound of a loud Diesel engine idling outside—when I looked out the window, I saw a white pick-up truck and trailer in front of my house and three of my son’s summer baseball teammates carrying couch #1 up the driveway. When they left, I had a full size sofa and two loveseats in my garage.
That was six weeks ago.
About a week after the couches arrived, I was at an event with two dads of the “couch boys.” We got to talking about our budding entrepreneurs but when I casually made reference to their garages already being full of couches, they laughed and said there were definitely no couches in their garages because they had said “no way” to that idea.
There is only one person with couches in the garage and it is me.
As every parent of teenagers knows, the enthusiasm for an idea or plan can disappear as quickly as it appears. And this phenomenon is hardly unique to teens. We all know people who start a project only to abandon it in short order—I am one of these people. Just ask my husband about the time I only painted one of the sliding doors of our closet and hid the unpainted one behind the painted one so he wouldn’t notice right away. The newly painted one was white. The other was dark brown. And still, I aborted the mission halfway through.
Welp, it appears that the couch boys have aborted the mission. How do I know? When two of them recently pulled into my driveway to pick up my son for their baseball game, I went out to chat for a minute in the driveway. When I kindly reminded them about the couches in my garage, one replied: “Honestly Mrs. Sanzi. You’d probably be best off just putting them out on the street.” The other concurred.
Dear reader, are you screaming on the inside like I was?
As a former high school teacher and mother to three teenage sons, nothing about this suggestion surprised me. It amused me because it was a) legitimately funny and b) never going to happen.
If those couches end up out on the street again—after being out on the street in another town and riding on a trailer to my house for an extended stay—it will not be because I put them there and it will not be on my street at the end of my driveway. I will set them on fire before that happens.
My new business venture, LOVE my view, has been up and running for a few months to “bring gratitude back to the game.” Our website is LOVEmyview.com. Come visit, shop and spread the word! A bit of gratitude goes a long way in changing our mindset and our mood — in 2024, I think a lot of us really need that.
To read the origin story for LOVE my view, click here.
I didn’t plan on launching a car racing product line but when my 17-year-old son’s wonderful 1st grade teacher, whose son races, reached out hoping for one, I decided to create one. These products are perfect for families of youth racers as well as NASCAR and Formula 1 fans.
Talk soon,
Erika