Over the past few weeks, something strange has been happening to my father. He has started to care about the house, but only one little part of it. He ignores the fridge-door-which-will-not-close. He ignores the handle falling from oven. He ignores the crumbs under the table, the dust on the mantle piece. He does not care about the toothpaste tube losing its lid, nor about the moulting budgie strewing its feathers across the Living Room. Not about the washing machine doing its crazy, premenstrual-washing-machine dance, rattling the glasses and plates on top in a way not dissimilar to a small-scale earthquake.

My father has become fixated by the couch in The Other Room. Nobody ever sits on The Couch. Its sole purpose for years has been as a dumping ground for school and college work, for letters and newspapers and hairclips and iPods and clean washing and everything which in its insignificance is labelled 'stuff'.

For about a month now, my father has been pleading desperately that he NEEDS The Couch. He NEEDS it to be an empty space, a space where one could sit if one wanted (but one never does want, prefering the Ikea chairs around the Ikea table, or the sofa in the Living Room). He scuttles around the house like an ant before a flood, carrying impossibly large piles of clothes up two flights of stairs to dump elsewhere. It was on The Couch, he growls, raising his eyebrows meaningfully. The Couch NEEDS to be empty of Stuff.

Leave it, please,, I beg as he staggers through my bedroom door with yet another pile of Stuff demanding, Is this yours, is it yours, it was ON THE COUCH! There is always a hint of hysteria in his voice when he talks about The Couch.

My mother despairs. You can't just...stuff things UNDER The Couch! It won't make it go away! It will be there, under the surface, collecting dust. And I will be the one who finds it and has to tidy it away!

Ah yes, BUT no!, he smiles knowingly. As if he possesses the secret of Making Stuff Disappear. If it is under The Couch, then The Couch can be empty of stuff. And it makes me very, very happy when that happens. We roll our eyes.

I have found another place to dump my Stuff. Leaving anything on The Couch for longer than five minutes whilst my father is in the house could lead to a full-blown catastrophe, with shouting and accusations and searching high-and-low. Because he never remembers where he puts the Stuff after he has spirited it away. It could be anywhere. I found my French Oral notes in the wash basket in the bathroom a few days ago.