Fun With Furnishings

Remember the demon-spawned cabinet Whiny and I put together last year? Well, yesterday, the Mrs. and I decided that we needed a couple of book cases to divide our bowling-alley-shaped living room/dining room/cat domicile and to keep our ever-growing mountain of crap off the floor. This time, we wanted to see if we could avoid the put-it-together-yourself-and-let-loose-demon-ant-hordes stuff. So, we drove around, stopping in some lovely second-hand furniture stores and generally making nuisances of ourselves. (Bigger nuisances than usual, I mean.)

I heroically resisted the urge to buy a 7-foot-tall Statue of Liberty for the front yard. And she changed her mind about decorating our new half-million-dollar home (the one we’ll get when we win the Lotto) in Wal-Mart fare, deciding she’d spend the rest of her life buying cool used stuff. But in one wholesale furniture store, I saw something that made my credit card leap out of my wallet and scream, “Buy that! NOW!”

Here’s what it looked like…

Oh, all right. So, it was way cheaper looking than that–almost plastic. But you get the idea.

Anyway, about two seconds after I said, “Oooh!”, the shock-and-horror on my spouse’s face gave me a clue to what was running through her mind. That was quickly followed by an emphatic “NO!” (I think there was something about divorce proceedings in there, too.) So, Mr. Credit Card pouted and shuffled his feet as he slipped sourly back into my wallet.

When we got home with the demon-spawned entertainment center that we finally bought instead of the bookcases (more on that later), I started in on a really good pathetic whine about how cool it would be to have a sleazy basement bar. Think of it! Lounge music, black lights, neon flamingoes. I would mix it up with sports den accoutrements, like a giant TV and a naugahyde couch. Maybe even get a trophy case and start collecting cool-looking cast-off trophies from pawn shops…

ME: Yes, that’s my bowling trophy. Right next to my World Series ring and the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, 1997.

GUEST: And this Pulitzer with Art Buchwald’s name on it?

ME: That’s my pen name.

GUEST: Why do you have a Tony Award? Tyne Daly??

ME: That’s my stage name.

GUEST: Rover? Best-in-Show?

ME: Um…that’s my pet name.

I got some definite negative vibes off all my ideas. But she said I could do it up as a tiki bar, if we win the Lotto. So, that’s progress. I don’t drink very much, and never entertain. But if I had a tiki bar…

Well, we got the demon-spawned entertainment center at Big Lots and commenced to putting the thing together. Whiny decided that, in spite of (or perhaps because of) our horrendous prior experience, he wanted to run the power tools (the electric screwdriver). At one point, he went to screw on a molding that was at an odd angle. So, he folded himself inside the frame of the lower cabinet in a manner not meant to be experienced by mortal man.

Of course, he got stuck.

We had to lift him out by his arms and legs. We almost dropped him, we were laughing so hard. But we declared victory on the demonaic tool of Satan (not the screwdriver, the cabinet), and went to bed, secure in the knowledge that we were the masters of cheap, ready-to-assemble furniture.

This morning, we noticed that instead of a left and a right, we got two right-hand doors for the damned thing.

It is mocking us.

I wonder if I can turn it into a tiki bar.