Zoë Weiner, an editor at a wellness Web site, received an e-mail last week from ABC Carpet & Home, the high-end furniture store near Union Square. “It’s never easy to deliver an update like this,” it began, “but we are experiencing production and delivery delays.” It would be about six weeks before she received the sofa that she’d ordered during a Black Friday sale last year—a sectional from ABC’s Cobble Hill line, custom-upholstered in a deep-pink velvet called Vance Blossom.
When, months ago, as Weiner was moving into a new studio in Greenwich Village, the original February delivery date was pushed up to May, she “had a bit of a meltdown,” she recounted over FaceTime. “I decorated this whole apartment around this very statement-making, coral-colored, massive couch.” This time, she was unfazed. Of greater consequence was the e-mail itself—an apologetic note signed by ABC’s C.E.O., Aaron Rose—on which two hundred and three other couch-expectant recipients were cc’d instead of bcc’d.
The reply-all avalanche began immediately. Frustration crescendoed into outrage: “So what’s the current ETD?,” followed by “I ordered in October! Paid in full. This is just ridiculous.” Then, a turning point: “Oh come on,” a woman named Funda Rozan replied. “Like you’ve never had a bad day at work because you’re exhausted, covid-weary, and stuck with the song ‘never eat soggy waffles’ in your head. Now at least we have a little (but mighty) community of 204 people during this unprecedented shortage of artisanally manufactured goods.”
Weiner seized the moment. “I’d personally like to make the most out of this bonkers thread and throw it out there that I’m a 29-year-old single woman in NYC looking for a Jewish man.” The floodgates opened. “You go Zoe shoot your shot!!” a woman named Tanesha Smith-Wattley responded. “This is legitimately funny and I am grateful for all of you, my new family of complete strangers,” Matt Freeman chimed in. Gus Goldsack: “Looking forward to meeting you all at Zoe’s wedding!” Moe Phillips: “I’d invite you all over but I don’t have a couch.”
Anger had been supplanted by lighthearted commiseration. “This is sooo amazing we should either unionize or form a cult!” Roberta Garza suggested. “Guess nobody’s hiding their afikomen in their ABC couch this year,” Caren Reuven wrote. “I’ve been sitting on a broken couch for 3 years,” Deirdre Curry admitted. “Finally caved and bought the Hannah in peacock . . . Instant regret once purchased. Think I have couch commitment issues.”
Discussions of how to wangle free shipping or discounts dovetailed with a proposition that the group start a fund-raiser for a family in need—a worthy use for money saved. Moments later, a GoFundMe page titled “Serendipitous ABCCers” went live.
Photos were exchanged: of fabric swatches being used as coasters, and of a cargo vessel blocking the Suez Canal (“Maybe our stuff is here”). Jane Rosenbaum, an interior designer who’d ordered a sofa for clients, felt guilty. She’d told them to throw out their old love seat: “I now wear the Vance Blossom fabric swatch as my scarlet letter.”
Other singles expressed interest in being fixed up: “Holler if you find any good ones that are more in the 35-40 age range.” (“I wonder if ABC does Chuppahs,” Almond Zigmund, an artist in East Hampton, said.) A yoga teacher named Tara Glazier wrote, “After a year inside with my family . . . I wish i was single.”A former student on the chain said hi.
Theirs was not the only reunion. “204 people and the world is getting smaller,” Henry Lee wrote. “I have just reconnected with my friend Melissa here. Now I don’t have to go to Zoe’s wedding solo.” Lee ordered a new couch after his ex got their Muuto sofa when they split. Referring to the pandemic, he said, by phone, “When I saw the e-mails, I thought, We’re in that struggle together. The couch is minor.”
This was not the first time a community had sprung up around couch-related problems. In 2016, a writer named Anna Hezel bought a West Elm model called the Peggy (à la the “Mad Men” character), which began to fall apart almost immediately. An article she wrote for the Awl went viral, legions of dissatisfied Peggy owners banded together, and the company offered refunds. In this case, the villain is less obvious. By phone, Rozan, a third-grade teacher and a parent of two, said that she felt empathy for Rose. “You know, what’s going on in his life?” she said. “Maybe he has kids on his back, climbing all over him.”
Rose, who joined ABC two years ago, does have children, whose remote schooling he’s been helping with—sometimes on the couch, a Cobble Hill in gray velvet. Although the mass e-mails hadn’t come to his in-box, his team had kept him abreast. Citing the appeal of ABC’s “sense of community,” he said, “This is a great example of the loyal customers that we’ve had over time,” although he regretted being “the catalyst for it.” He took responsibility for the delays, explaining that supply chains worldwide have been disrupted by covid, and that disastrous weather in Texas and Louisiana, where chemicals used to make furniture foam are manufactured, has affected production.
ABC matched the donations raised by GoFundMe, bringing the total to more than three thousand dollars. Three days after the initial e-mail, Weiner was reaping her own benefits. “I have two dates,” she reported, “and have been offered a wedding planner, an Airbnb vacation home upstate, and a place to stay in Morocco on our honeymoon—all from the thread community.” ♦
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