25/09/20

Health and Safety Messages for a New Sofa Delivery

For your own health and safety and to save a torrent of unwelcomed sarcasm, please make sure that delivery men are supplied with best (low cal) chocolate biscuits and a bottomless teapot. (Not necessary for Newman & Bright's delivery men). Room preparation – please make sure all paint is dry. ‘Gloss paint on sofas and whiskers on kittens’ as the song goes.. We recommend the new carpet goes in before the new sofa. Remember, chicken-egg. Move people from former sofa before installing new one. Remove money, spanners and relatives ‘presumed lost’ from old sofa before destroying it. If grandfather will not budge from his single seater, please call Help the Aged. ‘I’ve been polishing this sofa with my rear for 68 years and there’s nothing wrong with it’. (‘Yes, grand-dad, it may be shiny, but it’s fabric upholstery’.) Please be aware that installing a new sofa as well as having the old one in situ may lead to difficulty in getting around your living room. This should not mean you need a bigger house. Please only use low wattage light bulbs as the company cannot be held responsible for upholstery fading through excessive light. Direct sunlight will fade your sofa in time. We recommend you switch off the sun with the remote control provided. Install sofa with seating side up. Alternative options may cause discomfort. Please make sure you sit with legs pointing outwards. Alternatives postures are not recommended. To avoid spilling drinks on your sofa, please see instructions for which way up the bottle or can should be opened. (Our point here is that cans are the same shape top and bottom). If children use the sofa as a trampoline – please make sure they are supervised at all times by a responsible adult. If the adult is trampolining, too, he is clearly not responsible enough to be supervising a child. If they are eating at the same time as jumping on the sofa, please recommend they desist as it may cause choking at worst or unpleasantness at best. We appreciate you need to be warm but please do not leave your sofa unattended within two feet of an open fire. Actually make sure that you, too, are not within two feet of an open fire. Avoid dropping anything of any consequence or value down the side of your new sofa as illustrated in point 4. We’d like to thank Arnold G Brightwater, from the Office of the Health, Safety [&] Cringingly Obvious for this advice. Look out for our next useful paper on ‘Corned beef tins and other avoidable near death experiences in the kitchen’.

P.S. Where would we be without Health and Safety?