No. 921 – In the Blood

Performer: Better Than Ezra

Songwriter: Kevin Griffin

Original Release: Deluxe

Year: 1993

Definitive Version: None

By February 1995 when I bought Deluxe (moving through the second-tier acts now), I had just about completed the shopping for my apartment. I had a new bedroom set, a desk and fold-out sofa for guests, a dining set, a new stereo setup, rugs, lamps, chairs. I wasn’t going to get a washer and dryer for the German Village apartment, because it was going to be too much of a pain in the butt to get it down the stairs.

So there was one thing left to buy—a sofa for the living room. I had my dad and stepmom’s hand-me-down, but the broad and multicolored stripes were a bit dated for even my less-than-cutting-edge tastes. A new sofa was going to be a commitment: I had my eye on a leather model that was going to run north of a grand.

So what was the problem? Well, I knew Debbie had nice stuff, and both of our leases ran out in the summer. If there was a chance that we were going to move in together, I didn’t want to blow $1,200 on a couch only to have to sell it four months later or stuff it into storage.

And that’s more or less how I laid it out to Debbie: Do you want to move in together this year? I want to know so I can either buy this couch or stick with what I have. OK, so it wasn’t quite that unromantic, but practicality and frugality demanded a direct question, and, yes, it was a sofa that prompted the question. Pretty lame, right?

She was taken aback, although she confessed she had been thinking the same thing (not about the sofa), but she had never lived with someone she wasn’t married to, and I wasn’t ready for that. Well, based on the previous post, I think you know the outcome: The sofa stayed at Sofa Express.