About 15 years ago the wife found the perfect couch in the worst possible place — Goodyear, Arizona — about 60 miles from our house.

We got to the showroom in about 45 minutes.

“We have to see it,” the wife said. “We have to try it.”

It was leather. It was brown. She liked it, so I liked it. I’ve been married long enough to know to keep my stupid opinions to myself.

Five minutes inside the showroom. That’s the one. We ordered it.

Of course it was five minutes for me. It was two months of looking for her.

We turned for home. The freeway was closed. Broadway Road was under construction. Everybody and their dog was fleeing Goodyear for Gilbert that Friday rush hour. All of them on two-lane Baseline Road.

Lights every mile. Two or three turns of every light to get through each intersection.

Four hours later, the long crawl home was finally over. I may have been home faster if I rode my bike. A week later, we found out a store a mile from our house had the same couch.

Like a baby after a difficult delivery, we had an extra love for that leather couch, the loveseat and the reclining chair. Five places to lay flat in a living room for two people.

After 15 years, the leather and the cushions bent and shifted to each roll of fat, tendon or muscle in our asses. They fit our butts like well worn gloves.

They seemed to anticipate when we wanted to recline and when we had to get up. Carol Baskins, the 10-pound chihuahua mix, made herself at home perching on the backs.

When I had back pain, I knew I could find sleep in the fetal position pressing my back into the leather and letting my hip settle into the nooks they had worked in the cushions.

Last year one of the loveseat recliners refused to recline. It’s metal works were all fucked up in ways I could not fathom nor repair.

Then the left recliner on the couch snapped. It’s metal frames pushing up against my hip. The connectors declining my attempts to get them to reattach.

A month later, the right side of the couch “stuck”. It would only recline if you pulled up the leg support with your feet. It would not click back into place and permanently left its leg supports not quite open and not quite closed.

The right side of the back of the single recliner gave out, so even in the single chair there was a permanent slouch to the right. Bad backs don’t like slouching.

So it was on to new couching.

Ohh Leather couches we can’t quit you

The wife refused to let me shop. She went online, she went in person. She ended up at a custom couch store in Gilbert.

“This could cost us $15,000 or more…” I suggested she try Laz-y-Boy.

She tried. She liked only what she could custom order.

She brought me to the store.

“Try this couch, I like it but they only have it in blue.”

It was fine.

She picked a different one — a sectional they could make in leather, with motors for reclining chairs on the ends, a drinks/power section in the middle. It was about $15,000.

“We want to make sure you get everything you want, just like you want it,” the sales lady said in a kind of political tone that made me believe this was bullshit.

We left happy. It would be 3 months before we could get the couches — they needed time to “make” and ship them just for us.

A week later, the first phone call.

“We can’t do the motorized recliner – it will have to be manual.”

Another week another call.

“We can’t do the power console..”

Another week another call.

“We can’t do a drink holder, and we can’t do the middle section…”

“I thought you said I could have whatever I want,” the wife said. “Now I’m down to nothing I want.. Are you guys going out of business?”

A few days of negotiating later and good news.

“We have the original couch you wanted in brown. You can see it in our other showroom.”

We did. We liked it. We had it within 3 days. Saved almost $4000 in “custom” build.

The wife may not have gotten what she wanted, but I sure did.