Surprise Couch

When Paul awoke, it was to the taste of stale beer. His back hurt like a bitch, but even as he wondered about that his legs were automatically propelling him out of bed. He kicked dirty laundry and empty beer cans out of his way as he hobbled stiff-legged towards his bathroom.

As he pissed the symptoms of his hangover made themselves known, and his back was still killing him. A quick search of his memory didn’t help, but a quick fumble through the medicine cabinet turned up half a bottle of aspirin. Paul tipped half dozen pills out, and washed them down with the flat remains of a beer that had avoided use as an ashtray. His stomach churned dangerously. Cereal. That was the ticket. As long as his damn roommates hadn’t eaten all of it. No milk though, no sir. Not that you could drink the stuff they had in the fridge. Chew it, maybe.

He squinted against the mid-morning sun that stabbed through the blinds as he went back into his room. Paul flicked back the sheets, and was unsurprised to not find anyone else there. He figured he probably would have remembered getting some action, but it never hurt to check. He had a moment of dizziness and his stomach lurched again. He staggered down the hall, a man on a mission. His mind was already in the kitchen, hunting down a bowl or Tupperware and his cereal. His shins, however, were still in the hall, which meant that they collided sharply with the coffee table that had been left there.

“Wha-fuck!” Paul cried as he nearly toppled forward on to the unfriendly and unexpected object.

“Wtsfgl?” something grunted in reply from the living room. Paul could see the lumpy shape of that fat, party-crashing bastard (Dean or Dan or something) sprawled out on a couch he had never seen before. Nobody ever invited the guy, he just showed up and drank their booze. Here he was now asleep, in their living room.

Speaking of the living room…

Yesterday it had contained two mismatched sofas, a TV on milk crates, and a three legged end table. Now you couldn’t walk through the place.

“What the hell is this shit doing here?” Paul asked.

“Holy crap, dude!” said an excited voice behind him. “It’s like we won the couch lottery!” Paul’s roommate, Brett, was standing there eyeing the stacks like a kid on Christmas morning. Denise, the girlfriend of his other roommate, was standing behind Brett.

“I don’t see how you guys can’t remember carrying all that stuff up here,” she said sulkily.
Well that explains my back, Paul thought.

“Oh yeah, totally, dude!” Brett’s face lit up with sudden remembrance. “Where’s that leather chair at? Hands off, that bitch is mine!”

“Where did it all come from?” Paul asked as he rubbed his bruised shins.

Denise rolled her eyes; “You guys went around and grabbed all the stuff that people left on the curbs when they moved out yesterday. It was your idea, Paul.”

“Fine,” Paul said. You couldn’t argue with your own logic, drunk or not. “I’m getting some cereal.”

“Oh man, I wouldn’t eat any of that if I were you,” Brett said as Paul started to climb over the pile.

“Why the hell not?”

“Cuz Dean puked in the box last night, dude.”

“Fuck!”