In his apartment, it had a unique charm. Ass ugly, yes, but this wide wooden country pine rocker was a little broken, and so every time someone (or something) set it into motion, it uttered a bleat to put the see-n-say to shame.

"Hee-haw, hee-haw," said the donkey.

And we used to chuckle from the bedroom, even at the most inopportune times, when the bray from the next room gave the chair a life of its own, at least for the moment before we understood that the cat had jumped up into its seat.

"Hee-haw, hee-haw," said the donkey, a chair-acter Christopher Robin would love.

"Long live the donkey," I often thought. That is until it moved into my bedroom. Our bedroom, I mean. Moving in together is a union of space and spirit. But does it have to be a union of furniture?

"It's comfortable," he says.

So what, I say. It's hideous, ungainly. But don't take my word for it. Look at the picture. Read the description. Imagine this chair in your house.

First, there's the frame. Coarse and loud, it can't possibly sit discreetly in the corner, because it would never fit in the corner. And since it's busted, it rocks back too far and would surely gouge the wall paint. Machine-carved curves try in vain to make it look more substantial than it really is, dark stain attempts to make it look older than it really is, and the design is the worst kind of dated: something from the 70s that isn't coming back. The wings alone, splaying out from the wide, low back, keep it from ever being sold at a consignment shop; this chair has Garage Sale written all over it.

Next notice its foam cushions, which have been unsuccessfully muffled by a random throw--an old bedspread it looks like--in forest green. I should be thankful, because without it the brown, burnt orange and cream plaid fabric would surely frighten passersby who caught a glimpse of it through our window. And you don't even need to sit down to feel the fabric's scratchy texture, reminiscent of sweaty, strep-throat sick days on the couch in front of The Price is Right.

Without even asking I know what he likes about it. He likes that fact that the wide wooden arms can hold a glass of milk or a beer, even a small plate of cake; that his elbows can remain perfectly at rest while his hands hold both sides of the Sunday paper. But, sitting there, from that position, I'm the one who has to look at it.

It would be one thing if this chair had been meticulously chosen, or was a family heirloom passed down for generations. I would have to respect that no matter what it looked like. But it was just left somewhere and Joseph adopted it. Why does he have to hold onto it like it's his last bastion of autonomy? Putting your foot down is one thing, but embracing the grotesque is entirely another.

And yes, EVERYONE agrees with me. When I gave the first tours of our new place in his absence, my girlfriends (some of his friends first) all said the same things. "No, no. Not that. That's not staying?" one asked in horror. "What are you going to do?" said another emphatically. "You've got to get rid of it." Even the guys suffer an uncomfortable silence when asked to defend its worth. "Remember why you live together in the first place," my mother says. Whose side is she on, anyway?

I certainly appreciate comfort. And I'm trying not to be a control freak about the house--I know that aesthetics shouldn't be the first priority. But I've already had an internal dialogue with myself, and my interior interior designer just isn't giving in. "I want that chair outta here," he orders with a lilting voice and a flourish. "To the shed, to the curb to the fire!"

Without its bray, the donkey can protest no longer.

I'm staying. He's staying. What about the chair?

I'm staying. He's staying.
What about the chair?

Let me start by saying my girlfriend has exquisite taste. No question. It was her ability to fashion something (a room, an outfit, a meal) unique and appealing out of seemingly mismatched parts that helped make her attractive to me in the first place. But any artist capable of making their art appear effortless is really just adept at hiding the tyrant within and sadly, such is the case with my beloved's interior design.

I found this when, after we decided to move in together, almost the first words out of her mouth were declarations of the stubborn obsessions and non-negotiable hardline stances she had kept hidden from me to that point. She spoke ominously of decisions that would have to be made regarding our stuff, but still, I was not concerned. After all, she had long professed to be impressed with my ability to house and clothe myself with only a healthy modicum of sloth so I figured our tastes would dovetail nicely and painlessly.

But once we actually secured a house and started to bandy about our ideas for how to organize the rooms, I started to notice that my furniture was being excluded from any visible locations. I mean, sure, we weren't going to need 2 beds and hers was bigger so mine goes to Goodwill. No biggie. But when the proposed design for the living room had our television set resting NOT on my handy plywood all-in-one entertainment center (which I bought unfinished and stained myself, albeit the wrong color -something about stirring up the finish before applying it, who knows) but on 3 vintage suitcases with colors that matched the carpet, I began to wonder. Finally, about the fourth or fifth time the plan for the house seemed to come and go without any mention of my chairs or couch I spoke up. "What about my stuff?" I inquired, "It's not all going to fit in my office, you know." It was at this point that she realized with horror that I actually intended to keep my furniture.

This is where the arguments begin in earnest. Her plan is that all my stuff, all the wonderful brown fake wood stuff I had accumulated from my parent's house, college dorms, and previous roommates charity, all of it would be consigned to the scrap heap or at least given away to her brother who was short on places to sit. Her reasoning was that I hadn't chosen this stuff, I had simply inherited it, and therefore I shouldn't care what happened to it. Everything she had, she said, she had chosen specifically for a certain purpose and so how could I expect her to allow me to mess it up with my furniture. But it's my stuff I said, and it works just fine, I can't just get rid of it. Okay maybe its a little on the brown side, but hey brown can go with a lot of colors. Where would we be without brown in our lives? But she wasn't having it.

I immediately dug in my heels and refused to part with any it; not the couch, not the tables, not the fiberboard book cases, the orange lamp with the beige shade, or the old dirty shower curtain. Hour after hour she implored that I should trust her, simply recline on a wave of zen while she spirited all the mismatched, the soiled, and of course the brown out of my life. Relationships are about compromise, she instructed, failing to see the irony or her lecture given her stated inability to tolerate my stuff.

It all came to a head when the movers came. Because we had been unable to plan any room to conclusion because we couldn't agree on what of my stuff had to go, we simply moved it all to the new house. Compounding this, they packed my house last, meaning my things--each shrouded in controversy--would be unloaded first. Piece after piece entered through the front door in the arms of the movers who would then look at me for instruction (she was be off in another room embroiled in protest passive-aggressive style) and I would be forced to mumble something about putting it in the middle of the living room and we would sort it out later (thus defeating part of the purpose of paying the damn movers!) They shook their heads at me, those movers, they knew I had a fight on my hands.

But I was tired of fighting, I quickly discovered. It wasn't long after they were gone and we were left alone in our disheveled new environs that we finally cut some deals. She had discovered the new couch she wanted wouldn't be ready for 10 weeks so my wonderful cat-scratched, possibly bug-infested, old blue one would have to do, at least for a while. I agreed to chuck a few desks and chairs into the storage shed and my navy blue duvet cover to the closet. It would have been a perfectly harmonious arrangement, were it not for the donkey.

I picture the donkey emerging from the intoxicating vapors of blissful compromise like a lighthouse from the fog, for the donkey is about as subtle as a bright light in the face. I trust by now you have received a full account of all its shortcomings, which I won't bother to dispute. But I say this to you, friend: sink into its luxurious grasp and then take exception with it. It's for rocking your aching body closer toward repose, cradling you while you nap with a book on your chest, holding your drink on one arm and the sandwich on the other while you watch the game. IT'S NOT FOR LOOKING AT, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. And this is my point: sometimes you have to let function triumph over form or you wind up living in a museum.

I am not alone in my assessment that what the donkey has to offer is worth the way it looks. Many have offered to take it off my hands should I (wink, wink) "decide" to get rid of it anytime soon. But I tell them not to hold their breath. You see, the donkey is the primary piece of evidence in our lovely new house that I actually existed in the physical world BEFORE I met my girlfriend. And at least for a little while, this seems important in the grand scheme of things.