Two Feet!

A while back T asked what I wanted for Christmas. As I never have an actual answer to this question, or rather, never one I can really share without looking materialistic I usually shrug and say I will have to think about it. This year, the unshared idea was a recliner for the nursery. This has been my one and only nursery requirement since 1999, long before we were even engaged. While sitting up at 4am rocking my friend’s newborn son to sleep and reveling in the joy of the moment I wished the glider in their nursery was a recliner. Right then and there I decided that I could live without a pack-n-play or a changing table or even a crib if it came to that, but I MUST have a recliner.

 

The week before Christmas T asked again what I wanted. I told him I had something in mind but I was not sure if that was what he wanted to get for me. He said he had a good idea for something to get me but did not want to spoil the surprise. As it turned out, we were both thinking the same thing. Amazingly enough, Furniture Store A was having a buy one get one free sale on recliners. Perfect! We were not sure what exactly we would do with the second one but that could be worked out later. We procrastinated as is in both of our natures and the sale came and went. Hmm. Now we just had to find a good deal on one that we liked. We decided to look first at Furniture Store B. They have many recliners to choose from and I immediately found one that was very comfortable and smooth leather (hence easy cleaning) and affordable. "I’ll take it!" I told the salesman. "No" he replied, "you won’t!" It was the very last one ever on the face of the earth and it had been sold as a floor sample to someone else. We looked some more and found one in the clearance area that I liked just fine. We had them spray on their super duper fabric protection stuff and it would be delivered in two days.

 

While I was perusing the recliners T wandered around and found a sectional sofa he really liked. He has wanted one in the livingroom for sometime now. He called me over and we flopped down on it. It had a recliner at one end then wrapped around the corner to a sofa bed and then ended with a chaise lounge. We imagined that chaise in front of our big bay window and how much Maggie would LOVE to lie there and watch the world’s goings on outside. We poked and prodded the cushions. We looked at other fabric samples but decided the one we saw right there would go great in our livingroom so there was no need to special order. We went so far as to have the salesman pull the coffee table out of the way so that I could completely unfold the sofa bed and tried it out right there in the store. No strange bars or springs in the middle of my back like the one we have at home. We got pricing and delivery information and had the man measure the whole thing so that we could then measure our room at home to make sure it would fit. It turned out we had a foot to spare! Wonderful! We could even save money on the delivery charge by having the couch and recliner delivered at the same time. BONUS!

 

However, our livingroom at the time was not prepared to receive a new sectional sofa. We had a Christmas tree in the middle of the window, we would need to somehow move the immensely heavy sofa bed couch from the livingroom downstairs to the basement which would require moving the table from one side of the room to the other which would mean the huge stereo cabinet would need to be moved out to the garage. We would also need to figure out something to do with the huge chair in the livingroom, which is almost the size of a small love seat. There was just too much to be moved and changed and prepped with only one day’s notice. We decided to hold off on the sectional until after the holidays.

 

Last night we took a trip out to Furniture Store A just to say that we looked at some other sectionals before making an impulse purchase on the one we have both been fantasizing about from Furniture Store B. Well, Furniture Store A had what looked to be the same exact sectional only with slightly different pieces included. Instead of the big sofa bed, which we neither need nor want, it had another recliner section right next to the chaise. It looked much shorter in length from the one at Store B. We measured and checked and squinched up our faces in confusion and calculated and still didn’t understand how this sectional with the different and much smaller pieces could measure out to be the same size as the visibly larger one at Store B. Things just were not adding up.

 

We realized that the salesman at Store B was the one who had given us the measurements of the sofa. We measured the one at Store A ourselves and could not argue with the numbers that were printed on the chart showing the sizes of the different sectional pieces. We hopped in the car and drove from the far far far south side of town to the much norther part of town to Furniture Store B. The salesman we had worked with before was not in but another gentleman was happy to take his commission… I mean help us. We measured the original sectional and discovered that the measurements the original salesman had given us were short by two feet. Yes, two whole feet!!!!! We are not talking about oops I forgot the extra cush in the cushions, we are talking, I forgot how to read a damn tape measure! This sectional was a good 12 inches too long to fit into our livingroom.

 

Do you have any idea how irritated (read pissed beyond human recognition) T would be if we had gone ahead and scheduled delivery of this sofa only to find out that once we had an empty livingroom the damn thing wouldn’t fit between the walls? I am glad I did not have to witness such an occurrence. The baby might end up too scared to leave the womb had he/she/it heard such an outburst!

 

Luckily, we avoided just such a fiasco by decided that the wingnuts who work for Furniture Store B are commission grubbing assholes. We shall be returning to Furniture Store A this evening to arrange for delivery of the second sectional which we actually like better than the first one anyway!

 

Just to show I am shopping challenged in all areas, not just furniture I shall add my little excursion at lunch today. I was at a store looking at shoes. I tried on one style on my right foot and one on my left trying to decide which I liked better. I decided on the one on the left so I put away the pair from the right foot and went to grab the right shoe from the left-foot box. It was not there. I saw three boxes all my size and none of them had a right shoe in them. I saw sized above and below what I needed in pairs but they only had left feet shoes in my size!

 

I ask you. Is it me? Is it really supposed to be this difficult?