I naively thought that putting “free” in the Craig’s List posting for our old loveseat would generate some inquiries. When that didn’t happen, I thought writing a blog about our difficulty in getting rid of it might reach a different audience and turn up someone who was in the market for a pre-owned, pre-snagged loveseat.

There are, after all, advantages to acquiring a piece of furniture that has already been broken in by kids and pets; anything that could happen to a sofa already has happened, so everybody can just have a seat and relax. Feet on the couch, who cares!

But alas, no takers.  In the meantime, our loveseat sat warm and cozy in the garage while our daughter’s car shivered in the driveway.

The only option left was to call up a local charity and schedule a pick-up. I had been resisting doing this for fear of rejection; whether or not they will take an item is at the driver’s discretion and a few years ago we had a close call when the Salvation Army almost refused to haul away a sofa that I considered to be in pretty good condition. I was a little shaken to find out that the Salvation Army has higher standards in home décor than I do.

So rather than risk having the same picky driver inspect our loveseat, I instead called the local Catholic charity to schedule a pick up – at least that’s what I hoped it would be. While I was on the phone giving our contact info to a very nice gal, I tried to get a sense of how particular they are about the condition of items they will accept.

“So if you can see the pattern of the fabric through the cat hair, that’s ok, right? Steve was across the desk gesturing wildly at me, certain that the mere mention of cats would be enough to doom any possibility of them taking it.

Steve was the one who was going to be home on the day they were scheduled to come. Throughout the day I kept checking in with him. “Have they come, did they take it?”

When I pulled into the driveway late that afternoon, the garage door was open and…yippee!…where the loveseat had been was now empty space waiting for my daughter to pull her car in.

Of course, I wanted to know right away from Steve how the transaction had gone. Did he have to bribe them to take it? No, a payoff wasn’t involved but it was Steve’s quick thinking that saved us from having to chop up the loveseat for firewood.

Steve said the driver gave it a thorough once over and said with a half-smile, “The problem is it has a lot of dog hair.” Even though I had used the “Warning: Sucks up small children and animals” pet hair attachment on my new vacuum.

“Wait a minute,” said Steve and he shot upstairs to retrieve the Pledge Fabric Sweeper I had bought at Target a few days earlier. The driver immediately recognized it as the product he had seen TV ads for. In a few strokes, Steve had swept off about a pound of assorted pet hair. “Wow, does it work on cat fur, too?” Which of course Steve’s demonstration showed that it does. “I gotta get one of those.”

So everyone was happy. With the loveseat thoroughly de-thatched, the charity was willing to take it, we had our garage space back, and Pledge has sold another sweeper.