Okay, a little better with my writing, but I still need to improve. It’s been about two weeks since I last wrote and at the thought of writing again, it certainly brought a smile to my face that writing this column was serving some purpose. Which sounds odd I’m sure but considering past situations, it was almost a chore to do this six months ago. So what has happened lately?
Well, the last couple of weeks were very difficult. After five years of my kid picking apart the middle part of the couch, we decided the time was right to finally get a new couch. Grandma was in town, and my wife and myself took the opportunity to go to three different furniture places in the span of two hours. The first stop was Rooms to Go which my wife always loved since it basically made all the decisions for her which would not only include a couch in this situation but also an easy chair, end tables, lamps, rugs and anything else Rooms to Go could throw into the space. Unfortunately, in classic Rooms to Go fashion, the couches we were really interested in weren’t available until October. I’m not a fan of waiting of waiting 2-3 months and we left. No couch, no end table, no lamp. My wife did not seem pleased.
We had passed by a Bel Furniture on the way to Rooms to Go and saw they were having some sort of Black Friday in July sale and decided that was our next destination. Getting there seemed easy, but in the midst of a circle drive (these should be outlawed) and turning down a side street which look reserved for giant trucks that would crush my now seemingly undersized SUV didn’t seem like a good use of time. But eventually we got there and parked in what barely resembled a parking spot. We went inside, and it looked like a clearing house of sorts where everything was marked really low (which was great for me) because quite frankly no one in their right mind would want 75-80% of these items. I should have turned around at this point. But in classic Durr fashion, I pressed forward.
We eventually found a couch that interested me with a price that was even more inticing. I gave it the usual sit test and then looked at my beautiful wife of nearly seven years and asked so, 1-10 what do you think? She looked back at me and responded “ehhh, 5…6”. What about that one that we would have waited until October for at Rooms to Go? She shrugged, “A 6?” What about the couch we have at home before our son got a hold of it? “6, maybe a 7.” We walked out of Bel Furniture and left a couch and a really nice easy chair (or at least I thought). I am sure the heck not buying something that’s not at least a 7 on my wife’s very tough scale.
I won’t lie, things were not going well. My mother in law had given us a good opportunity to shop for something that would have ended terribly had we brought along our six year old. We would have purchased something that was either a 6 and/or waited until October to get it. But we were arguably wasting time and things were going to close in about 90 minutes. So I did what any reasonable person would do in this situation. Take my wife to get frozen yogurt. After indulging in some much needed frozen refreshment, we re-analyzed the situation and went to the place we should have went in the first place, Texas Furniture Hut.
Texas Furniture Hut was the place several years ago where I bought four book cases to replace my old I just got you from Walmart and Target mix and matches. We also purchased our dining table from there and to this day all those pieces of furniture are holding up like prize fighting champions of the world. I’d buy 20 more of those bookcases if I had the space or the money to do so. They are that good. It also happened to be a stone’s throw from the yogurt place and was still open. We go in and immediately my wife finds the couch she wanted, theater seating. Down girl.
After I had a small heart attack on the price (it was an 8 by the way and no I don’t have any idea what a 10 resembled but I was pretty sure the Royal Family was not willing to part with any of their heirlooms on an installment plan), we moved on to look at more reasonably priced pieces of furniture. We actually liked quite a few of the pieces. After about 20 or so minutes, we did end up finding one that I not only liked for its comfort (and support for my back) but didn’t break the bank. It was also a 7 on the wife rating which meant I could move forward.
As with most purchases that are costly (which for me is always anything that’s $500 or higher), we walk around the item about 5-10 times before inevitably someone from the place comes up and asks if we need any help. Which happened here, and even though we weren’t at a car dealership, I decided to spin the conversation into “Can you do any better on the price here?” We were also interested in the easy chair that went along with the couch but it’s hard justifying the chair when its only a few hundred less than the giant couch.
Oddly enough, it did lead to a 15% discount (which she said they were having a sale but since there weren’t any obvious signs around I just labelled it as trying to help out my non-decisive self) and they still had one in the warehouse. Only $100 to deliver and assemble it was pretty awesome as well. I ended up getting it last Friday and it has lived up to the billing so far. Trust me, if I need a piece of furniture from here on out, I will start there rather than spend time at random other places. However, the yogurt was excellent.
So that’s part one of my last couple of weeks. I have more to tell from a broken AC to a broken vacuum cleaner to Facebook TV Selling to Prince’s “NEW” album. But I need to take a break. More later. Enjoy.
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