In Transit

Yesterday was one crazy-ass long day. It began simply enough with a client meeting, though that turned out to be much more extensive than most and took us straight to lunch. Before the day even began I knew that the rest of the day would be a write-off. Still, I thought that write-off time could be spent running a couple of errands but mainly weaving trim for the curtains. Would it? No.

From 12:15 to 7:45 p.m., we visited Pier 1 5 times. Not the same Pier 1. That would be weird. But three different Pier 1s in three different towns. And a visit to World Market thrown in for good measure. And the reason for this has goes back to that countdown clock you see in the left hand column.

I have determined that I will no longer appear to live in a half-done home. Given this, I am looking around the house with the eyes of a stranger. Some things are easy. Like all the mirrors and artwork sitting on the floor near where they will finally be hung. Or the half-painted rooms. Or the curtainless windows. Other things I have managed to shield from my vision, simply because of the immensity of the task ahead of us. But now that many of these items are now completed, I need to re-vision the home. And what I saw nearly made me barf.

The worst area turned out to be the solarium that for nearly an entire year has been furnished with folding all-weather camp chairs. And not even the deluxe kind with cup holders sewn into the arm rests. These have no arm rests. No cup holders.

To solve this issue we attempted to purchase two matching clearance wicker chairs and ottomans from Pier 1. Except that our local Pier 1 (store A) only had one. So after a grueling all-morning meeting at a client’s office, we stopped at that town’s Pier 1 (store B), and discovered that they had exactly one, too.

I asked the salesclerk to call my local store (store A) to ask them to hold their chair and ottoman, and then I would buy the one from this store (store B). She called store A. They still had the one, yes, but another person was en route to buy it. Quickly we did a phone order to secure the set from store A. Then we bought the set from store B. And we hauled it out to the car.

Where it would not fit, no matter how we twisted and turned the chair.

I called the parental units and drove to my father’s place of employment to borrow his vehicle. I left our car, then drove back to store B to pick up our furniture. Then we hit the highway to unload it at our house before we could drive to store A to pick up that set. Cushions? No time. We had picked up the car around 1:30, and my father got off work at 3. Especially with an absolutely necessary stop for gas, we had no time to spare.



Back to the house to unload furniture (have I mentioned that we hadn’t eaten yet?) then back on the highway at 2:30. Would I make it in time? Nope. Fortunately I had called my mother so she was there to pick him up when he got off work. We picked up our car, then caravanned to the parental home to return the folk’s car. After a quick swing through the drive-thru at Sonic for half-price drinks and an order of tater tots, we were back on the highway. We stopped at our home long enough to empty the trunk (the ottoman had fit) and use the facility, then we were back in the car, heading to World Market to buy a cafe table and two chairs for our patio (also on sale). You know, somewhere to have coffee in the morning, or beer in the early evening? We barely squeezed them the car, unloaded into the garage, then headed back out for cushions at store A.

Now store A had two matching seat cushions we liked, but only one cushion for the ottoman. So I had them check surrounding stores’ inventories. Store B had none. That left Kansas City, which has multiple locations, several of which showed between two and five of our cushion in stock. We called before putting the car in drive. The first store had two in inventory, but none in reality. The second had five in inventory, but none in reality. - You’ve probably determined by now that Pier 1’s inventory system is crap - The third (or was it the fourth?) had one ottoman pillow. By this time it was close to 6 p.m. We swung through a McDonald’s drive in for sustenance, then drove straight for store C in city C. There we bought not only that cushion, but a birdbath as well. Then back in the car.



We had left the house around 9:20 a.m., and finally returned home around 7:45 p.m. Talk about a long day! But soon, very very soon, one more room will be company ready. Paint, curtains (after the coupon World Market promised me arrives - we have a little less than 24 hours before I start getting pissed off ) and a shade cloth currently on order from Home Depot will round out the staging phase of the solarium. More will come later. We plan to replace several panes of glass with screen/storm inserts, and level out some weird rough fill holes in the floor, for example, but these are things that we will know about, not the world at large.

Onward.