Ottomans as Coffee Tables

Let me lead off by explaining somethin'. Mrs. Wigwam and I have been watching way too much HGTV recently - having become first-time home owners ourselves. And HGTV is a Good Thing, no doubt about it. We're addicted.

But there is something I can't take. If I see it again, I'm going to go berserk, I just know it.

The very concept turns my stomach.

The Ottoman as a Coffee Table.

You see, there are ottomans, and there are coffee tables. They are very different things. They are not at all the same. The only characteristics that they share are that they are both furniture, and they both belong in the living room of a house. That's it. Otherwise, they are as related as a microwave oven and an ice-maker. They are both lovely, but intended for different purposes.

But someone, some Evil Person, has gotten it into their pointed little head that since you can put your feet up on both a coffee table and an ottoman, that means that they are interchangable. They are not.

Let me repeat. An ottoman is NOT a coffee table. It is not right to try to use an ottoman as a coffee table. An ottoman is typically soft and upholstered and has a slightly round top. In what way is that useful as a coffee table? Where, pray, does one put the FREAKING COFFEE? Y'know, because they CALL IT A COFFEE TABLE for a REASON! This insanity must end!

Now, having seen on HGTV that they've been turning ottomans into terrible coffee tables for some time now, it has become a trend. Yes, and furthermore, since ottomans make such lousy coffee tables in one sense because they are too small, they now make ottomans that are oversized, so that they can be better coffee tables! It does not make them better coffee tables, it makes them worse ottomans! Morons!

Making an ottoman bigger, so that it can be a better coffee table, makes about as much sense as making your mailbox softer so that it will be a better couch. A mailbox is not a couch, and an ottoman is not a coffee table. Torturing the poor dumb thing doesn't fix anything.

I'm a gonna say this about one more time. An ottoman is a little rectangular poofy upholstered thing that you put yer feet up on. A coffee table is a table, made of wood, glass, or some similar hard flat level material, which you can also put yer feet on, but is more properly used to put yer dang coffee on. Or some books. Or the TV remote. Or what-have-you. Try putting all that stuff on an ottoman. Doesn't work, does it? Slides off onto the floor. That's because it is not a very good coffee table.

So stop it. Just stop it. I mean it - knock that crap off now. I can't take it no more.

Folks, just say no. Don't buy an ottoman unless you plan to put your feet up on it as it was designed. Don't buy an oversized ottoman, for God's sake! Tell HGTV to get their head and ass wired together - or who knows where the madness will end?

I can see it all now - bread boxes as TV sets. Microwave ovens as coffee makers. Flag poles as Barca Loungers. I don't mind strange, folks, but there has to be a limit!

Keep Pluggin'

Wigwam Jones