The elephant.
There’s an elephant in my office. It’s the elephant-sized sofa that takes up half the usable space. And it simply must go.
Like most home offices, mine didn’t start out that way. When we first moved into this house, that room was the guest room. The massive sleeper sofa seemed like a reasonable fit, under the circumstances. I mean, after all, someday we might actually have guests, and they might need a place to sleep.
The changeover from guest room to office has been gradual. The nightstand has been replaced with a server rack. Desks and filing cabinets fill half of the office. Five years later and three years into my full-time freelance life, and as my need for space increases, the sofa has become the final obstacle. It’s not that I don’t sit on it — I do like a nice comfy spot for editing and reading — but that it’s just not the right size, shape and configuration for what I need. I’d give my left arm to modify that entire side of the room to include a couple of nice, comfortable Ikea chairs, a good reading light and a little side table for holding my papers.
And so, I finally made the decision to get rid of it and claim the space as my own. I’ve listed the elephant on Craig’s List, hoping that someone will bite. So far no one has. But somehow, the simple act of deciding to send the sofa packing has made it all the more intrusive and irritating. Every day I wait and scan my email in the hope that someday soon my office will be all mine.