The Comfort of One's Couch (mucus)

A woman sat on a couch, watching television with her husband. Suddenly, she felt something moving inside her pants. "AAAAH!" she screamed. "There's something alive in my underpants!"

She removed her undies and out plopped something small, pink, and alive. It was screaming.

"You had a baby!" said her husband, astonished. "And I just thought you were fat, and the reason your belly kept squiggling was bad gas!"

"Me too!" said the woman.

So began the life of Mucus Edwards.

His parents simply left him on the couch, because he seemed to enjoy it. They fed him there, clothed him there, and otherwise left him there for twenty-four hours a day.

He grew up on that couch.

7 Years Later

Mucus grew up into a fine young lad, though he screamed every time someone suggested that he leave his couch.

"I know you've spent your whole life so far there," said his mother, "But you've got to get up and see the world!"

"No I Don't!" screamed Mucus, "If I leave this couch, I'll be facing all kinds of harsh perils and horrific dangers! NO! I refuse!"

AND SO, Mucus's life passed by. He kept himself nourished by eating pieces of the couch.

One day, his mother came into his room.

"Your father and I have decided to move," she said, "You can get off the couch and come with us, or you can stay there sitting on your ass and we'll abandon you. Your choice. What's more important, your family or your couch."

Mucus thought. Apparently they didn't understand just how comfortable his couch was. "I'll stay here," he said, "I don't want to leave. I'm sitting in a particularly comfortable position. Standing would mean severe discomfort."

So his parents left and he was completely alone.

He had no friends or relatives who ever visited him.

But he didn't mind. He preferred the company of his couch to that of other human beings. Humans were emotionally demanding, and inconveniently alive. This couch existed for the sole purpose of allowing him to sit on it. It never argued with him. He loved the cold solitude of his couch. The expansive softness. Best of all, the couch didn't have a life of its own. It wasn't a creature capable of independent thought. It existed solely for Mucus's comfort.

Once in a while, he'd peek over the edge of the couch at the floor and let his terror of the world beyond his couch overwhelm him.

"That floor is probably freezing cold," he said, "My foot would probably freeze and drop off the instant I made contact with it."

And so, his life wandered by. He passed 40 years. Then 50. Every time his birthday went by, he'd scratch a mark on the couch.

With every passing year, he became more determined to never leave the cozy couch. All sorts of horrors existed beyond his personal realm of comfort. He imagined himself standing up, then stubbing his toe and bleeding to death. His couch was his place of security, and beyond his couch was pain, agony, fear--and worst of all--the unkown. As long as he never left the couch, he'd never have to take any risks.

One day, another family moved into the house. But they moved out again quickly at the site of a 67 year old man sitting on a couch. One of them tried to talk to him, but he ignored her, and he tried to bite her when she got too close. She might have touched his precious couch!

On the day he turned 80, he made a radical decision. He was going to stand up.

He was going to leave the couch.

He was going to take the plunge.

Terror swelled in him as he swung his knobbly, veiny legs over the edge of the couch. Then, in one swift move, he leapt to his feet.

He was shocked to find that the floor under his feet was soothingly warm.

And suddenly, his terror melted away and he was sobbing, for he had wasted his entire life fearing nothing. He had been a coward. An idiot. His life had been nothing.

But then, that misery was replaced by a thrill of excitement. There were books on the shelf to be read. Other rooms in the house to be explored--he could only imagine the thrill of the kitchen, the awesomeness of the attic. He even dared to consider voyaging beyond his home, into the outside world.

There was a gorgeous world beyond his house. Mucus was thrilled.

Too thrilled.

He suddenly gasped, struggling for breath, then keeled over backwards.

The thrill of freedom was too much for dear Mucus.

He should never have left the couch.