Furniture Wars

My daughter is at war with a local furniture store, and in the words of Mr. T—“I pity the fool” that has to tangle with her.

She bought a nice set of furniture in anticipation of getting her own place. The strategy is to get it and pay it all off before she has to start paying rent. She picked out some pretty stuff—dark wooded bed, dresser, armoire, and side tables. Heavy stuff.

Not cheap.

Back when my bride and I were just a couple of flat-bellied kids, we moved around a lot, and got it down to a science: Drain the water bed while everything else was being packed. Break down the slats and sides, and move it all in three car loads. Set up the bed and start to fill while the rest of our stuff was being moved in and put away. The first night’s sleep was always a little chilly until the heater element warmed the water mattress. But that was how we lived and learned to live together.

I can barely lift one of the sideboards to my daughter’s new bed. It took a small squad of flat-bellied Teamsters to move this stuff into the house, and they didn’t even break a sweat.

The problem is—she doesn’t like the stuff she bought.

The problem started when they delivered a damaged piece…and then they mis-delivered another piece…and then they brought out a replacement piece that hadn’t been put together as well… and I think a little touch of buyer’s remorse, tinged with a hint of customer dis-service frustration, set in hard.

Today the honeymoon with the furniture store is officially o-v-e-r, and my charming, demure, exquisitely polite little princess is Tawanda on the Warpath, demanding an audience with no one less than the store General Manager—not the supervisor in customer service or the greeter at the front door. She’s taken careful notes of the whole ordeal, and before this is finished, Dan Parsons at the BBB will have a full report, regardless of the outcome.

Somehow a bean bag chair, a gently sanded record crate from Peaches, and a 14” SONY Trinitron seem like sweet paradise.

Cheap and simple.