Be careful what you post on Craigslist. The couch you’re sitting on, debating whether or not it’s time for it to go? Well, it can be loaded up by someone named Bevy and headed to Madison before you have time to realize what you’ve done.

I know this from first-hand experience, and I must say it’s amazing how much more space a room has when that happens – and how much less seating, which can be a real problem. So I joke with the boys as I set out to shop for a new sofa: Get me a license. I’m on a hunt.

After all, how hard can it be? I’m just making a decision that we’ll have to live with what, 10 years at the most? It only has to match the rug, the paint, the drapes, the shades, my skin tone and every other stick of furniture in the room, right? Not to mention the fabric has to hide popcorn stains, and the frame has to suit the napping preferences of all parties involved. Oh, and there’s those particular measurements it has to fit, too.

Hmmm. This could be harder that I first thought. But I’m primed. I’m ready. And I’m alone. For some reason, nobody else thinks this is going to be fun.

Even in his absence, though, I could picture what would happen if my husband joined me at the store. He’d sit on a few cushions to humor me, then indicate he liked them all.

“Let’s get real here, Kim,” he’d call back over his shoulder, leaving me behind at the salesperson’s mention of coffee a showroom away. “It doesn’t have to be the best couch ever. It’s just a couch.”

Just a couch? Really?

Then he’d return (with his coffee) and sit in an over-the-top leather recliner, lean all the way back, and be bold enough to ask, “Hey, why aren’t we shopping for one of these instead of a couch that you shouldn’t have sold in the first place?”

The nerve. Even in my imagination, when I’m putting the words in his mouth, he’s doling out doubt.

Still, the task had to be done, so I faithfully armed myself before entering each store within a 50-mile radius. Tape measure? Check. Paint card? Check? Competitive price-checking internet device? Check. My phone/leverage tool, I soon learned, gave me on-the-spot information of interest to helicopter salespeople, and picture texting gave me on-the-spot thumbs up and thumbs down from husband and kids alike.

So the question is, why, four weeks after our couch went to live with Bevy, are we still sofaless? That could probably be best answered by Son No. 2, who just this evening told one of my friends about the couch we custom ordered back in the 90s when he was little – the one we waited six weeks for, the one we put smack in the middle of our den, the one he apparently loved like no other. Yes, that would be the couch I took back. The very next day.

My friend listened to his sad story, then told one of her own. It seems her mother-in-law has been searching for a sofa, too. For three years.

Three years? Now I admit, that scares me. In fact, it scares me enough to consider putting in a call to Bevy. Maybe, just maybe, she’s having some buyer’s remorse of her own.

Wesson resident Kim Henderson is a freelance writer who writes for The Daily Leader. Contact her at kimhenderson319@gmail.com.