Big Blue

At Great Minds Think, Sarah & Rohini
offer up ‘The Object Speaks Challenge’
where we are invited to give a voice to
the objects we usually overlook. This
is a rewrite of a story I wrote in 2023.

“Well, hello there. I’m Big Blue. And you? Ah, a pleasure to meet you, Reader. Please have a seat, get comfortable and let me tell you a little about myself. 

My family and I were purchased in 1964 by Nancy’s parents, Vito and Connie, for their home in The Bronx, New York. Oh, I didn’t look anything like I do now! No, my upholstery was a luxurious green and gold velvet paisley which looked very elegant with the marble-topped French provincial tables and off-white wall-to-wall carpet in the family’s formal living room. Nancy’s parents only used the formal rooms on the first floor for special company.

Connie kept a beautiful house, immaculately clean at all times. Like most Italian households, the basement was where the family really lived; it was like a separate apartment, fully furnished with a kitchen, dining area, laundry room, bathroom and tv area. Connie had a nice sewing room where she spent many creative hours and Vito had a workshop in the back where he made homemade wine and tinkered with things that needed fixing.

My “family” consisted of four pieces which could not be sold separately. My mother and father were the focal point; they were joined at the hip …. literally …. and formed one expansive sofa. My big sister was a loveseat, and my twin brother and I recliners, however Connie felt recliners didn’t fit in with the look of the formal living room. She purchased two traditional upright side chairs upholstered in green velvet for the living room and my brother and I were brought down to the basement to join the more casual furniture in tv area. My brother soon became Vito’s favorite spot for a late afternoon snooze and I got to be 13-year-old Nancy’s chair! It was the start of a long and happy relationship between Nancy and recliners …. one she still enjoys to this day.  

From my vantage point, I could see everything that happened in the basement …. Vito listening to opera, Connie making homemade pasta, the girls doing their homework at the kitchen table. I had a front row seat for every tv show the family watched. In fact, the only time Nancy didn’t sit on me was when she sat on the floor five inches from the tv to watch The Beatles live on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

Oh, the memories! I snuck a peek when Rosemarie made out with her first boyfriend, Billy Mack. I held back tears of pain when Connie meticulously stitched my torn seam. And I was the only one in the basement that June morning in 1972 when Nancy sat at the kitchen table an hour before her wedding, dressed in her beautiful white gown, dunking Oreos into a tall glass of milk. How I wish I had a picture of that! 

Then in 1977 the day came when Vito and Connie decided to move to a smaller house in upstate New York. Connie said it was time for new furniture and my family of four was placed on the curb for someone to take home or to be picked up by the trash collectors. It was terrifying for me; the thought of going to strangers or being smashed in the jaws of a garbage truck was unbearable. I still had many good years ahead of me! Thankfully, Nancy’s husband Bill picked me up off the curb and put me in their station wagon. I was overjoyed to be going to live at Nancy’s house! I also overheard that one of Connie’s friends took the rest of my family. What could have been the worst day of my life turned into the best!

My velvet upholstery was replaced with a really cool shade of blue leather and I was put in Nancy’s “Beatles Room” where I still reside, but now it’s a bedroom where six-year-old granddaughter Colette likes to play when she’s at Nancy and Bill’s house.

Honestly, dear Reader …. things couldn’t have worked out better for me. Sure, I’m old now …. 62 to be exact …. but I still look pretty darn good. I’ve had a happy life!”

NAR©2023, 2026

This is “I Feel Fine” by The Beatles

Great Minds Think – The Object Speaks Challenge

^{Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}