The Inconvenience Index

This past Saturday morning, I woke up at 6 a.m., which is about par for me on the weekend, as I normally get up at 5 a.m. during the work week.  If someone had told me when I was a teenager that I'd be getting up at 5 in the morning on a regular basis, I would have suggested that they go have their head examined, because that wasn't going to be me.  Yet here I am ...

Anyway, I was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking my coffee and looking around the room.  And it suddenly dawned on me that everything looked like shit. Especially the side table in our main "being room".  We had bought the thing when we were first married and were trying to furnish our apartment, and it just looked so 70's, even though we had refinished it.  Disguise is just what it is ... disguise.  Underneath it's still unfashionable 1978, staring you right in the face.

So later on in the morning, I pushed Jan into the truck and we went out looking for something to replace it.  Put-it-together-yourself furniture is always cheaper than going to the furniture store, so we headed over to one of "those" places and in no time, had spotted a large buffet that was not only perfect, but it was 25 percent off.  When the clerk loaded the box with a thousand pieces of wood and screws onto the truck and I said something about the huge tear in the carton, he said to not worry about it because it was so well padded.  And off we went.

After much grunting and cursing, we managed to lug the one ton box into the house and when we opened it up ... voila'! ... half of the material was in match sticks, right at the torn part of the box that "we shouldn't worry about".

Incensed, and full of adrenalin, I lifted the massive load of scrap all by myself and threw it in the back of the truck to return it.  Back at the store, there was much tut-tutting, and after cooling my heels for a few minutes waiting for the replacement, the store manager emerged from the back and told me there weren't any more buffets.

Me:  What???

Store Manager:  I'm sorry, we have some more coming to us in a few weeks.  They've just been so popular!

Me:  Shit ... what about the floor model?

Store Manager:  Oh no, that's our floor model!

Me:  So what?  It's for sale isn't it?

Store Manager:  Oh no, that's our floor model!

Me:  (Death Ray Stare)  Look, I just paid 400 dollars for a piece of furniture.  I'm not walking out of here with just my dick in my hand.

Long Pause Punctuated By Continued Death Ray Stare.

Store Manager:  Okay.

Me:  Good.  I'll pull my truck up out front.

Store Manager:  All right.  There's a fee for putting the table together.

Me:  I'm sure you'll waive if for me though, won't you?

Store Manager:  Uh ... yeah.

So, the Store Manager and his minions loaded the table on the truck, all the while bitching that he had put it together himself and it had taken three hours to do it.

On the way home, I called Jan and told her I'd be there in a few minutes.  She sighed and said that she'd get the tools ready to assemble it.

There are few times in married life that the husband feels like a hero, but when Jan's eyes bugged out when she saw the all-ready-assembled piece of furniture in the back of the truck, I reveled in the glory.

Today, I put up a new ceiling fan in the living room. What should have taken 20 minutes took three-and -a half hours.

It all evens out.