Ben Bradley & Emily Pollock: How the journalism couch brought them together and symbolized their friendship

Our friendship centered around couches long before the “jouch.” We first met on our kindergarten recreational T-ball team — where we tossed sand more than practiced — and plopped down on a couch at the team banquet for the first time together.

After that, our eyes always searched for a place to sit. At any gathering, you’ll find us splayed out on the couch, dishing out gossip. While the common folk wonder what we’re discussing with serious expressions and folded arms, they’ve learned that they cannot sit with us.

We were two peas on a couch — until Emily deviated by joining Harbinger freshman year. Naturally, Ben followed.

That’s when we discovered the jouch (journalism-couch). Junior year, it was considered an honor to sit on because it symbolized our transition to upperclassman. Sure, it had a huge hole and was probably infested with hairballs, deadline dinners, lost phones and the entire Chick-Fil-A menu. But we accepted her flaws because the jouch was home. 

Throughout the next year, we spent most of our Harbinger hours and deadlines chatting and working on our new throne. We accepted the role as king and queen, always keeping the jouch in pristine condition — well, as clean as it could be. It became our duty to ensure the leather sides didn’t peel off, the hole didn’t rip more and that it was sittable for the next class period. 

But as the months passed, the jouch’s holes deepened, with chunks of leather tearing off and exposing the filling. Despite our efforts, our throne was decaying — disappearing just like our time in high school. 

It was time for a new,  nicer jouch. We still remember the day that we came to class to see our jouch replaced. Who was this imposter? No lumpy sides to accidentally slip off of, no holes in the cushions to swallow our phones. What was the appeal? With the old couch that we had grown to love being tossed out, it was becoming more clear that our time together was coming to an end.

Reluctantly, we learned to love it anyway. After realizing how much the old jouch meant to us, we knew we had to give its replacement a chance. We finally gave in and regained our titles of jouch royalty. 

In college, we won’t be able to sit on the jouch every day, but that won’t be a problem. We’ll plop on a couch 13 hours and 56 minutes away from each other and facetime while random roommates walk bye and realize that they will never understand our inside jokes.