Bah. Hum. Bug.

A couple of years back My Love and I bought our first house. That is a number of stories in and of itself, but I'll skip forward a bit to the point of this post. What comes after purchasing a house?

You get to put stuff in it.

Now, I'm a guy [last time I checked] so, in typical guy fashion, I'm not really too big on interior decor.

Shocker, I know.

That's not to say that I don't appreciate having stuff, I really do. Lemme put it this way; in my previous - [insert marriage-mandatory descriptions of; cold, lonely, miserable, solitary existence, without the benefit of the guiding light of my life, without whom I would continue to be a miserable excuse for a wretched human being] - bachelor life, for a short while I kept my clothes in a bag and slept on the floor of my apartment. So I appreciate having nice stuff, it's just that right now we already have stuff, it's the spending money on upgrades that I'm not exactly crazy about.

It was a battle, of sorts, and I appreciate her letting me think that I ultimately had any choice in the matter.

Said battle was on the spending of money. We'd already paid off everything but the mortgage, and had a bit of cash saved up. I was all for continuing to save, or perhaps spending it on truly worthwhile stuff like guns, ammo, big-screen tvs, fancy cigars, a bar, and perhaps a motorcycle or three. She wanted to buy nice furniture to replace the second hand stuff we'd used in our previous apartment/hovel.

So off we went, furniture shopping.

She did the research, I did the sulking and pining away for Daddy's oft-delayed toy collection, and eventually 'we' decided that 'we' had found exactly what 'we' always wanted for 'our' house and 'our' bedroom set. We walked into the local Furniture Store to pretty much get a last minute eyeball of the bedroom set and to start making the purchase.

Saleslady was good to go as far as they go, friendly and nice. My Love knew what 'we' wanted, but she had spared me on exactly what the price was. I had only just come-to after hearing the sticker price when some bastard explained to me that the number wasn't even for the whole set, just for the one fancy hoo-ya that you put a tv and blankets in. Some fancy-frenchy sounding name, and it didn't even come with a frisky-Frenchy, to ease (my) financial pain.

At the price, I thought it really should.

So we gave the lady our cash, she took down our info, and we were all set. She did kind of push hard for us to purchase the entire set (yeah, right!), but we explained to her that we'd be paying cash, not credit- no thanks, don't want to finance through the store, thanks - yeah, we understand that the set could go out of production (pleasepleaseplease, baby Jesus!) - just this one piece, for now, thanks. I didn't really begrudge her for the push, just her job, after all.

That whole process went ok. We got the delivery confirmation call a few days later, moving guys brought it in, dragged it upstairs, set it up and everything. It really does look good, and I'm sure we'll have it for the foreseeable future.

A few months later I decided to order the li'l tables you put on either side of the bed, for her birthday. I had scrounged up a bit more cash, took another long, depressed look at my various catalogues, and sulked my way back to the store. Same lady was there, and we did the dirty deed. Not as pricey as the first time, but it was still grimace-worthy.

Now, blame it on the mortars, IEDs, or what-have-you, but I hear (ha!) that the volume on my phone is a bit on the loud side. It works for me, so that the level I keep it at. I was having a grand old time tormenting My Love with false clues as to what she was going to get for her birthday one afternoon, sitting in the living room chatting, when my phone rang. Loud enough for apparently the entire neighborhood to hear, as she tells it, the lady from the furniture store yammered on about the delivery confirmation for our new bed-side tables. Mystery was kaput, after that, but she still loved the heck outta the things.


It was awhile back when I landed on the idea of what to get her for her Christmas gift. This was going to be the truly bend-right-over-and-take-it-in-the-wallet-pillaging item, so I knew that she didn't expect it at all. I had scrimped and saved like I usually do, mournfully drove right past the local gun store to the evil furniture nemesis shop of my doom. Quite surprisingly, they were again more than happy to take my money.

mumblegrumblemumble.

Well, I got the delivery-confirmation call yesterday afternoon from the store.


I was napping at the time.


Industrious lady / recent arrival to My List (and brand new top 10 member), after not getting ahold of me, looked into the store's records. Searching way back to the original purchase, she located another contact number for us.


It was My Love's cell phone number.


Bah!