Caterwauling

I’m Google-bombing these bitches. Value City Furniture sucks donkey’s balls.

OK, so I’ve had no furniture for the past year. Money’s been tight and well, really, I have a 32″ television and a bed — what more does a girl need?

That doesn’t mean I haven’t been looking. Because I have. Especially in the past month or so since I’ve moved — I have a 1,000-foot apartment that’s looking mighty sparse. And I don’t want to unpack books and knickknacks because I may want to move the shelves, depending on where the furniture will go. So, I continue to fall over my boxes in the interim. Joy.

I’ve been to every furniture outlet known to man — or, at least, the names familiar to D.C. denizens. Marlo Furniture was a waste (and my friend had a really bad experience with them). Sticks ‘n Stuff was a big fat disappointment. Nationwide Warehouse wasn’t worth the drive. Z-Lights had cute stuff but it was a little on the pricey side for the quality, I thought. The list of stores I’ve visited goes on, but I don’t want to give them the airtime.

So, I’ve bought a few things from that shithole Value City Furniture in the past, when I lived in Pittsburgh. Other than the idiot VCF delivery guys who couldn’t fit my overstuffed couch through my second-floor apartment door and left the thing SUSPENDED IN MIDAIR instead of taking it back to the store (no shit, it was wedged and we had to walk under it to get to our apartment. Classy), I’ve loved the stuff. I still have an entertainment center from there.

So I checked out the Web site. I was totally digging the black Calypso set. I would have ordered it straight from the site, had they offered that service. But alas, you have to go in person to order. I ran a search for the closest store and got Falls Church. Meh. I hate Falls Church. It always rains when I have to go to that area, so I always know to expect doom, torture and depression. And today’s voyage? NO DIFFERENT.

The second I got there today, a voicemail appeared from someone I wasn’t disappointed to hear from. 😉 So I actually thought it was a good sign. But really, the day would just go downward from there.

I asked one of the vultures sales associates to take me to the Calypso collection. Which she did, but she bypassed it by three couches. She pointed out something to me, and I thought OK, maybe it’s a new piece I hadn’t seen on the site. So I said great, do they have it in black? (The collection is usually shown in mocha, and I ain’t an earth-tone girl.) She said no, it doesn’t, but she’ll check.

Grr.

So I walked over to the Calypso couch (the one she showed me had another “C” name, and don’t think I didn’t have a few “C” names of my own for HER at the end of this adventure) and planted my ass on it. Comfy. Loved it. Overstuffed microfiber seats, backs and arms; pleather everything else. And the throw pillows were microfiber and pleather in a cool geometric pattern. I love squares and straight lines. This was perfect for me. I hated the brown, but the one I wanted was dark-gray and black. Like everything else I own.

So she comes back and says oh, the thing you’re sitting on comes in black. Um, duh. I said I needed a few moments, but I wanted the couch and the loveseat, but I needed to go hyperventilate into a bag at the thought of spending that much money in one day.

I called my mom and wandered around the store. Found a fantastic dining room set that seats six, and I loved the etagere and the sofa table that matched it beautifully. I wanted it all.

And though it was going to kill me, I decided to buy it all. I work for a living; I can earn more money, right?

It only took me an hour and a half to come to that conclusion, however. But yeah, when I was ready, I was ready.

So, I found the girl (I really don’t care about commission, but I figured I should at least try to give it to her) and was happy to give her what was going to be a $1,500-plus sale, before adding in shipping, tax and protection plans. I was thrilled — finally, my house! Will be livable!

Cue the screeching of brakes.

I give her my shipping address and it’s all, whoa, we don’t deliver out there. I said fine, find a place that does deliver it because I’m paying in CASH and I don’t want any delays. And she said no, dumbshit VCF only delivers within 15 kilometers (the hell?) and I am right outside of that. (I don’t know — it was maybe a 20-mile drive to the store.)

So, basically, the Northern Virginia store doesn’t deliver to D.C. proper, is what she’s saying. And the next-closest stores that have it in stock are in Baltimore and Hagerstown, Md. WHICH I WOULD GANDER ARE MORE THAN 100 MILES FROM HERE.

I wasn’t having it. I said, “Fine. I’ll pay more.”

Now, this is where she would think wow, I’m going to rob this customer of $2,000 and she still says to tack on more charges so she can get this shit. Perhaps there is something I can do to save this sale?

Bwahahahaaaaaa.

She said sorry, nobody will deliver it. But you can take it home yourself, no?

*headslam*

Clearly I decided to shop alone, and me and my iddy biddy widdle sports car wasn’t going to handle a dining set for six and living room seating for six as well. And even if I rented a truck from the lot, what army was going to help me load/unload it? Or, for that matter, to DRIVE the truck?

Sure, I could have rounded up some of the locals — I have very good friends who would probably have gladly helped me out of this jam. But why put them out when I can just pay somebody else for the aggravation?

I was so freaking angry, but I tried to control it. I said, “So that’s it? You’re refusing to deliver it? I drove here — to what YOUR WEB SITE said was the CLOSEST store to my house — to buy furniture IN CASH and I can’t actually HAVE it?”

She said, “Well, yes.”

I said, “And there’s NOTHING I can do or NO ONE who can help me?”

She said, “Not unless you pick it up yourself, no.”

I said, “No sale. And I cannot WAIT to put this on the Internet!” And stormed out of there.

ARGH.

So. Very. Angry. Cannot tell you in simple, typed words how PISSED OFF I am.

I decided to treat myself to lunch after that mess, although don’t we always treat ourselves unless we have some nice young man and/or good friends who will do it for us? Anyway, I rested and mentally came up with a vicious blog entry about just how much VCF sucks, and I was fine.

When I got closer to home in D.C., I decided to visit one more furniture store. For the hell of it. I had seen signs along the road that they were liquidating their inventory. And all these fucking stores act like they’re going out of business 365 days a year, but you can come back in two years and they’re still there, using the same signs to draw in customers.

But the place I saw really WAS liquidating. They had brought in a team of salesmen from their main office and they were throwing deals at me that were almost too good to pass up.

Almost, I say.

I found a great set, overstuffed microfiber loveseat and couch, with a retail price of $1,700. Ouch. The deal they offered me? $901 for both.

Dayum.

They had it in hunter green (but the cushions were all southwestern-y and shit, with cacti and orange accents. Weird) and brown (again, not an earth-tone girl) and a color they call oyster. It’s sort of like sand or stone or what I’d call pebble, but that’s just me. 😉 The brown wasn’t too bad, but it had a nail head trim to it. And I don’t dig that, not one bit.

Not to mention, but the dining sets were tragic, but that’s neither here nor there. As far as the couch, I wasn’t opposed to spending that much money on that nice of a set. Boy, was it comfy. And I felt SMALL on it. The thing is huge. I have a huge place, but I’m not so sure about getting it through the front door, which is miniscule. But to fill up that big living area? This would work.

That pale color bugs me, though. I don’t do lights or whites. I did this whole pebble color with my bedroom — the duvet cover, sheets and pillowcases are this “nothing” color, and I hate it because it stains very easily. You don’t wash it for a week, and it looks dingy. And forget it when cat hair gets on it or if I spill something (what do I mean “if” I spill? LOL) — terrible, terrible purchase aesthetically, although I can’t bitch because it’s a 400-threadcount wonder, and damn, that makes for a good little nap here and there.

So, do I want to dump a grand on a couch/loveseat in the SAME FUCKING COLOR?

The good news about the couch is that they deliver it here. 😉 (Had to ask!) And I could just pick up some throw pillows in my color of choice. And the really sad part? THAT FUCKING OYSTER COLOR MATCHED THE FABRIC ON THE SEATS OF THE DINING TABLE I COULDN’T GET FROM THOSE FUCKHEADS AT VALUE CITY.

The dining set was all black wrought-iron and glass, and the seats had a cream color to the fabric. I didn’t love it but then I saw the new couch and god DAMN it, it would TOTALLY work together.

Grrr.

I don’t know. I’m tired and crabby and frustrated over the whole situation. I decided to sleep on it all. I just want a couch, but I want something I love. I told the guys I just want something black, and they told me to get out of the ’80s and pick a damn color already because nobody makes black couches anymore.

*kick*

Decisions, decisions. Why can’t I get what I want, when I want it, especially if I’m paying for it?

Perhaps I’ll just measure the door tomorrow and try to figure out whether that glorious overstuffed wonder in the fucked-up color will fit through the door. But at least the delivery guys can’t be as fucking moronic as the VCF guys who left my couch jammed at the top of a door frame. One hopes, anyway. …

The real reason I’m sitting here blogging is because I need to waste some time for my cell phone to charge because I forgot to do it last night.

I was just celebrating the one (perhaps only) perk of moving — finding clothes I used to love but that I’d totally forgotten about until I had to go through three wardrobe boxes and nine multi-gallon storage tubs of crap (that doesn’t include the three storage tubs of shoes). Because the shirt I picked for today? Way cute. Seriously, I am loving me today.

Don’t write me off as egotistical — feeling cute doesn’t come around too often, so we celebrate “The Cute” when it happens!

But this brings me to my blog category about Being a Girl. This is where I get to dump my rants on frilly things and where I get to indulge my habits and emotions. The category could easily have more than 136 rants in it (of the ones I bothered categorizing), but those are the ones I choose to publish. If anyone ever got inside my head and saw the things that go unblogged, that category would have at least 40 billion entries.

Like, the ladies’ room at work. There’s a subject that reeks (literally) of the insanity that plagues women. No, I’m not speaking of the gal who stares at herself for a half-hour on end while her (male) supervisor probably searches the rest of the building for her. And she doesn’t just stare at herself — meeting someone’s eyes in the bathroom mirror is just fucking creepy, so you just learn to avert your gaze. Dude, I was just touching myself — now I want to cleanse myself and I really don’t need to have this moment be a shared one. *squick*

But it does bring me to the bathroom door. In archaic style, we had a combination lock on the ladies’ room, but not the mens’. And even though it was rather easy to remember, I am one of those people who waits forever and by the time I get there, the onset of jaundice typically prevents having any time to spare. I always put in the combo incorrectly, and everyone knows me by my high-pitched shriek of “FUCK!” when I screw it up.

I’ll skip the part of when the lock was broken and someone fashioned a rope handle from a computer cable, and I’ll even try not to talk about the big note on the door to remind us to use the rope (as if we missed the LOCK and DOORKNOB being gone). But I will say that I actually MISS that combination lock.

Why?

Because when I’m alone in the bathroom, I don’t just duck out, straightening my clothes on the way out without the benefit of the mirror. I actually take that extra 30 seconds and ensure that I look the way I intended to when I got dressed that morning. And if the underwear just isn’t working with the outfit, I can do a quickie adjustment without anyone seeing.

So of course this leads to the fact that I have my hands down my pants when someone starts to walk in. And I of course thought I had that full three seconds before they entered, but alas, I have about a millisecond to get the hands above the waist unless I want to be remembered as the flasher. In comparison, having one ass cheek hanging out and trying to “walk out” the wedgie seems classy. 😉

Anyway, I type all this not because it’s funny or even because I had a moment of humiliation. (I slobber when I have dinner with the opposite sex; I have no right to be embarrassed by anything else if that doesn’t mortify me. And it can’t bother me, because it happens as sure as the sun shall rise.)

I just say it because you guys just don’t KNOW how much we go through just to seem normal and cool. It doesn’t come naturally — if you think we seem slightly scattered, I assure you, it’s a victory because we’re completely and totally fucked up, most of the time. We’re always wondering if you notice. Some of us try not to care, but yeah, we always think we did something to offend.

And those of us who’ve been around the block a few times know that half the time, y’all don’t even notice the stuff we obsess over thinking you might have witnessed or even perceived. Then you’ve got the girls like me who wonder whether we SHOULD have been embarrassed by something that didn’t particularly bother us at the time it happened or even for awhile afterward.

Now, if you do something, we usually think it’s cute. Even if it isn’t. 😉 But hey, we come equipped with rose-colored glasses — it’s a birth right. But we only use them when we’re looking at somebody ELSE, not ourselves. So for me to declare today as a “cute day,” I assure you, it took a lot for me to think it and a hell of a lot MORE for me to say it. And all because of a shirt!

But today? I own “the cute.” And it is on a day like today that you will see me and not necessarily know what that special spark about me happens to be — you may write it off as that “je ne sais quoi,” and you should — you might not realize right away that I am confident and happy and ready to take on the world.

But that’s the thing — you don’t need to see all the work that went into feeling that way. You just need to appreciate that I got there, and when you admire the best version of me, I will aspire to be that way more and more until it comes naturally.

If you see someone with an extra spring in her step, smile at her today. It might just be me. …