My La-Z-Boy Turned Me into a La-Z-Girl

It was approximately four years ago that I went shopping for a new sofa. When I had purchased the couch I was now ready to replace, it was a black and white eye-catcher and just ordinarily comfortable. It looked good in my living room for a while, but the time had come for me to consider buying a new piece of furniture as my cats had exhausted their nail-grooming privileges by reducing my couch into what looked like a pile of hay. As options (and excuses for these options) swirled through my head, I tried to come up with a satisfactory solution to the problem of: cats plus claws plus upholstery equals destruction.

'I could have all six of my cats declawed,' I thought, -- but declawing older cats isn't recommended. Putting a couple of chickens and a goat in my living room for a country effect that would compliment the haystack probably wouldn't be a good idea either as the cats might kill the chickens and the goats would most likely eat my couch - err -- haystack, and my philodendrons. Finally, after considering wrought iron furniture (or something of that nature) a possibility, I drove to a strip of furniture outlets to see what I could find.

After looking high and low for a sofa I felt would be able to withstand the stress of six sets of razor sharp cat's claws, I traded in my preoccupation of this hopeless idea with one more pleasing to my senses when a lovely forest green sofa with sky blue and rust colored threads subtly woven throughout its fabric lured me to its side. When I asked the salesman how much this couch was selling for, his answer was disappointing as my intention was to spend no more than seven-hundred dollars.