The Curious Case of the Couch--Part II

I honestly thought that one couch, suddenly materializing upon our roof, was enough.

It seems that I was wrong. Last night, during one of the darkest hours, another couch was surreptitiously planted on our front porch. My father was actually still awake, completing some work on the computer down stairs--he heard commotion but took it to be the nightly sounds of my nocturnal brother preparing lunch. When my father decided to retire for the night, he crept upstairs to turn off the porch light--and lo and behold! A thoroughly uninvited, large piece of furniture glared at my father through the bay windows. He must have just missed the culprits scurrying into the darkness.

Really? I mean--for real. Another couch? Do people have nothing better to do with their time than to terrorize the poor Pineiro's, startling us with sofas? Thank God they didn't steal one of those scary Big Boy statues. I will publicly admit to everyone on the Internet that I would crap myself if I woke up to one of those ten-foot, bulged-eyed creepers offering me a pie.

Naturally, my father called the police--and like a broken record, the police officer asked my father if he had any daughters. For real? Do people only pull pranks on people's daughters?

Perhaps I need to apply critical theory to this situation in order to understand it better...

Marxist Theory: The reiteration of the couch--first on top of the roof, and then on the porch-- is an ironic status symbol. My father was a Cuban immigrant and entered this country with little money or possessions. After being a dedicated member of the working class for 45 years, my father is rewarded by the invisible (but over-powering) governmental force with the patronizing symbol of luxury--an old lumpy couch with moth-eaten upholstery.

Queer Theory: For the past eleven years we've lived in Allendale, Michigan, our next door neighbor J---- has had a flaming, unrequited passion for my father. Because of their stark differences in political dispositions and because of my father's obvious heterosexuality and fidelity to my mother, J---- knew no other way to demonstrate his obsessive amorous attraction for my father then to send him couches--the unconventional gift being a metaphor for his unconventional sexuality in conservative Allendale.

Psychoanalytic theory: The couches are not real. They are simply a manifestation of some kind of latent dysfunction in my father's mind-- so deeply repressed into his subconscious--but made so real through projection that all the members of our family can see the couches, as well. The couch, as a symbol itself, represents our deep need for family therapy--in which we will sit on couches similar to the ones that appeared on our roof--or above--as in our minds, and on our porch--next to the front door, in which it sought entrance to our attentions.

I feel better now that I have applied my college degree to the curious case of the couches. I am reminded of the importance of higher education and am delighted that my tuition dollars are being put to some good use.