Ink: Lotus Tile

Many ages ago, in a town called Low-Dee, there was a boy. The boy was bored out of his mind. Fortunately for the boy, he had a friend. His friend was also bored out of his mind. Obviously they were bored out of their respective minds and each was not bored out of the other’s mind. That would be madness and frankly, quite confusing.

The boy and his friend, who also happened to be a boy, spent much of their time together. The two of them, both being boys, rarely had a good idea between the two of them. In fact, their ideas usually were quite stupid. Somehow neither of them ended up dead. Low and behold, our story begins with the boy and his friend, on a Wednesday night, in March, of 2000-16 (this is how they write the years in this story, obviously). 

For the sake of clarity between our two characters, I will call the boy... “boy”, and the friend I will call “friend.” Both of them are boys, as stated previously, and they are obviously friends to each other, but I shall call them boy and his friend. I digress. On this very average and plain school night, the boy and his friend were tired of pretending to do homework and figured they deserved some fun as a reward for their effort in feigning hard work.

Boy: Friend, we should do something.

Friend: I’m glad you said that, I’m tired of pretending to work.

Boy: Pick me up and let’s do something.

Friend: What should we do?

Boy: Let’s drive and see where the night takes us.

Not too long after their riveting exchange, the boy and his friend found themselves driving aimlessly through the boring town of Low-Dee. Having driven around for a few minutes with no destination, they decided to pull into the local GoodWill and see what mischief might be inspired by such a place. Now the boy and his friend wandered aimlessly through the store rather than aimlessly down the roads. That’s when the boy saw it.

Friend: What would we do with it?

Boy: I don’t know but the sticker says five.

Friend: You think it’s only five dollars?

Boy: It might be. It’s definitely at least five.

Employee: It’s five.

Friend: Dollars?

Employee: Mhmm.

Boy: Well that settles it, I’m buying it.

Friend: how are we getting it home?

Boy: I’ll figure that out after I buy it.

So the boy and his friend lifted it and were surprised that it didn’t weigh as much as they figured it might. The cashier repeats what the employee said and the boy lays down a weirdly wrinkled and awkwardly wet five dollar bill down. With no receipt and five less dollars than they came in with, the boy and his friend left GoodWill as the proud new owners of a dirty used couch. 

Boy: It isn’t going to fit in your car.

Friend: I know, that’s what I was saying.

Boy: Oh.

Enter Pal. Pal is also a friend of the boy and his friend. Pal is also a boy. The story now has three boys who are all friends with each other but for clarity they are “Boy,” “Friend,” and “Pal.” So Pal, being the good friend that he was, showed up with his bigger car to help transport  the cargo from GoodWill to the residency of Boy. Once at the residence, they moved the cargo from Pal’s car to Boy’s car since they drove the same vehicle. 

Friend: Now what?

Boy: I don’t know, put wheels on it?

Pal: If we do that, can we tow it?

Friend: Seems fun.

Boy: Seems dangerous.

Pal: Same thing.

Boy: Let’s bring it to school.

The next day, that is exactly what the boy and his friend and their pal did. They brought a couch to school. Of course the residents in this small boring town were not too excited about it and they almost got in trouble for simply sitting on a couch on campus in the morning. The students seemed to like the idea and the word started spreading. The boy and his friend and their pal were up to something and nobody, not even them, knew quite what it was.

Within a week the boy had made his twitter page into a dedicated page for “The Couch.” The idea was simple: take the couch to random places, set it up, sit on it, and take a photo. Stupid, innocent, and rather quite a waste of time if you ask me. But the boy, his friend, and their pal did it nonetheless and they had more enjoyment than one should for such a silly thing.

Although their pal was not always accompanying the boy and his friend on The Couch adventures, he was as much a part of it as the boy and his friend. The boy and his friend took that couch quite far sometimes. Once they took it to a flooded field. Then to a park and placed it on the playground bridge. There was a lake. Once the boy and his friend, not being too bright, hiked it fairly far up a mountain. They got sand in the cushions when they took it to the beach. Prom photos, San Fran Cis Co, summer nights with hammocks strung between cars, more prom photos and lastly the most beautiful photo of the boy, his friend, and their pal at Hume Lake.

The adventures were loved by the Low-Deeans and students at their school. But as all good things do, the couch adventures ended. The pal moved away and so did the friend to pursue higher education. A year later the boy did the same (though he never quite finished but that wasn’t too surprising). Then one day, the boy had an idea. The Couch was collecting dust in the garage of his parental's residence and it was bound to be thrown away sooner than later, so why not immortalize The Couch? Now, for sake of transparency and clarity, immortalization only goes as far as the boy does, since we know he isn’t immortal, we know too that tattoos aren’t either, despite popular belief. So the boy, being hasty and set in his thoughts, walked into the first tattoo shop he could find and got the couch planted on the back of his leg.

Boy Text: *Image of couch tattoo*

Friend Text: Is that real?

Boy Text: Yeah.

Friend Text: Where is that?

Boy Text: Back of my left calf.

Friend Text: Bet.

A few hours passed and the boy received an image from his friend. It was The Couch. As a tattoo. On the back of the friend’s left calf. Immortalized was the Couch and their friendship. Legend has it that to this day, the friend has no other tattoos (the boy has too many, just ask his mother!).