Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Focus, Jenny, Focus!

Acccck.... I can't! I have sparkler brain this morning about what I want to write. Gosh, do I tell you the tale of the table, or a granddaughter story, or tell you what I'm making for dinner, or, or, or....

ummm....

ummm.........

Oh heck, I'll give you the abbreviated version of each.

I went to the antique mall here with the intent of looking for some cool chairs for my kitchen. Instead I fell in love with an amazing, amazing pine drop-top table that was the perfect size to replace the table in the breakfast area of my kitchen. I like my table. Don't get me wrong. It has been a creative outlet for a number of years with various incarnations of paint. Here's the present one ... and I like it just fine but, hey, if you give me a mid-nineteenth century drop-top pine table it's gonna go. I look and look but I can't find the price and finally I go and ask and the clerk lady perks up and says "oh, that table? That is museum quality, blah, blah, blah....the price is underneath it on a red ribbon" so I go back to the booth, crawl around on the floor, knock off my reading glasses and finally locate it. Here's what it says "520 - 1850's English farm table - pine" I measure it. I look it over. I love it. I adore it. $520 bucks. I'm sending stuff off to Ohio for a show. I had some book orders this week. OK. I'm gonna do it.

I head up and ask about their layaway policy and the very friendly, nice lady seems excited and says 30% down and then three equal payments. I can do that. 30% down is only .... ummmm.... ummmm.... something like $63 dollars right? So I start filling out the paperwork and she runs my debit card AND IT IS DECLINED!

What? This can't be. I know for a fact there is $183.62 in there since I checked before I left the house.

I recalculate 30% and figure out that it is closer to 150 bucks. No problem. I don't need to buy groceries. It's all good.

I say...run it again!

She does. IT IS DECLINED!

I say run it as a credit. IT IS DECLINED!

She is kind of loosing patience with me AND no longer quite as nice.

OK, I get out my business credit card which I know has around three hundred bucks in it. Same thing. DECLINED! DECLINED!

I am getting ready to slink out of the store in shame. And the crabby old clerk says "look, just write me a check for the $946 dollars, OK? And I gulp. $946!!!! Dollars? Dollars? Pesos? She very snottily shows me the tag and I say "30% of 520 is around $150 dollars" and she turns the tag over and says "this table is museum quality and it is $2,840 on sale! Now do you want it or not?"

Well, of course I want it. I've suffered huge humilitation because I wanted it. But I can't have it. I tell her that it is too much. She says "why did I waste her time." I say, "I thought it was 520 bucks" She says "oh ha ha ha! I told you it was museum quality. You must be joking." I slugged her. OK, I didn't but I wanted to.

So I left. With no table. And no table in the future.

And now I have to repaint my kitchen table so it looks like a museum quality table with lots of coats of paint on it from the very early 21st century.

And now I have wasted too much time on this stupid story and I saw my work area when I walked by and realized that a) I have not finished packing stuff for fed-ex b) my packing area is a wreck from a three year old who will be c) arriving here in 30 minutes prepared to talk and eat and read and eat and play with Fisher Price.

So I guess you're gonna just have to wonder what wonderful thing our granddaughters said and you're gonna have to figure out what to make for dinner all on your own.

Hey, don't blame me for being cranky. I almost had a museum quality table in my kitchen and instead I am stuck with a table that is most often home to newspapers and pretty ponies.

Sigh.

6 comments:

Lemonade Makin' Mama said...

Oh my gosh... I am just feeling your pain. And laughing hysterically, but not AT you... just with your story... I'm so sorry, but that really stinks. That's a LOT of money for a "museum quality" table too...

Mardell said...

That's crazy insane! Museum quality or not, who'd pay close to $3000 for a table? Aaack. I bet it was nice though... So did they mark it wrong or was it in the *fine print?* Good gravy!

I want to paint our table too, but Will won't let me. It's ugly & needs freshening up. (As do the chairs!) That's the 1st thing I do when he kicks the bucket. (j/k, but not really.) Ha.

Terri Steffes said...

My daughter works in a museum and I'll tell you, the furniture there isn't "museum quality". What does that mean? That it's old??? Old geezer.

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

Oh no! Aren't you glad your card was declined? Imagine going home and finding out later that you charged so much when you thought it was around $500? I hope there will be another drop-top pine table table in your future Jenny.

What do you make to sell? I can't tell from looking at the photo?

We have the same vintage Fisher Price airplane ..lol...in the garage waitng for my grandson to get bigger.

X0 Pat

Anonymous said...

Just wondering...was this lady a former "L.I.B."?????

I'm just sayin...
Laughing with you...never at you...:)
jimi

golonghorns said...

Oh poor you! Hope you find the table of your dreams. To answer your question "What is Cottage Country". There are rental cottages and privately owned cottages North of Toronto in an area called Muskoka, tons of lakes everywhere and close to Algonquin National Park. Every weekend people flock to the north to "Cottage Country". You'll hear people saying the cottage, etc.. They even do traffic reports for people driving there. I see that you are from Ohio... me too, do you miss it. I have always wanted to go to Arizona but Texas is as far as I've gotten! And drooling at all the fabric under the table in the last picture!