Originally posted in January, 2009
Before reading this post, please read Part One.
The Couch Escapade, Part Two
I know what you are thinking. I marched back into Value City and got all Edward Scissorhands on Dottie's beehive, leaving a foul-fingered masterpiece on top of her lady-lost-her-mind head of hair.
Oh, how I wish I could tell you that was true.
But remember I told you there was a blessing that came of all this? Well, there is a pretty, soft, buttery, oh-so-cozy ending to this escapade. That I promise.
So after my near-Towanda moment, I vowed to find the couch of my dreams.
That following weekend, we hit the stores - new and used (Yes, I said used. And before you haters judge, let me make two things clear: 1) We have a young son who travels with crumbs, drool, and boogies; a dog who tracks in dirt, mud, and critters; and a baby-on-the-way who will surely litter our home with spit-up stains and the occasional oops-I-missed-the-diaper; thus we have no need for a showroom piece of furniture, and 2) I aim to make green choices whenever I can - a used piece of furniture satisfies my favorite mantra - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!)
Not having much luck, I remembered that there was a JC Penny outlet store in a land far, far away. Okay, so the outlet was merely on the other side of town, but when your side of town contains over a dozen furniture stores and a few consignment shops, a 1/2 tank of gas for JC Penny is hard to justify. But like Veruca Salt wanted her Oompa Loompa NOW, I wanted a couch yesterday!
So here is how the JC Penny outlet works: every piece of furniture has a colored sticker on it. Each color corresponds with a percentage discount starting at 50% going up to 90%. We soon found several pretty, soft, buttery couches, all 50%-70% off! We were looking at $2000-$3000 couches selling easily for under $1000! Score.
One such couch was very much in stock. We found five of that same exact couch, but strangely a couple of them were 50% off, a couple were 60% off, and one was 70% off. Curious, indeed. We couldn't figure out why the one was so much cheaper, so we asked one of the I'd-rather-be-with-my-boyfriend sales gals. She said that the longer the couch sits in the store, the cheaper it is.
Uh, works for me!
We didn't have to think twice - we asked the darling little sales gal to put a SOLD tag on that bad boy. Before making the not-so-big-purchase-after-all, we made another loop around the outlet. While reveling in our bargain, a young family approached us.
"Excuse me, we saw you folks looking at that couch, and well, we looked at it too, but it appeared used. There's dog hair in the cushions."
Hmmm. Not sure what to say, "Um, thanks, we'll check it out."
Thinking he might be right, we moseyed our way back to the golden ticket and started the cavity search.
WHAT IS THIS? Dog Hair?! And crumbs?! Ewww! Thank God for the don't-let-'em-fool-ya angel who brought this travisty to our attention!
I frowned, hubs shrugged, but being the optimist that he is, he said, "well, we can still get this style couch for 100 bucks more, no biggie, let's go check the others."
Um, I should mention that the same mother who once embarassed me in the department store because she manipulated her way into a great bargain actually taught me a thing or two. And remember that Don't mess with the pregnant lady mentality? Well, it all kicked it.
TOWANDA!
I wasn't going to just buy the next couch because this one apparently was on it's ninth life.
So I flagged down the darlin' sales gal and showed her the results of our cavity search.
Poor girl, her expression couldn't have been more telling. 'Oh shoot' is a nice way of putting it.
Fortunately, she had a walkie talkie. Walkie talkies call managers. Managers mean, "I ain't paid enough to deal with this crap."
Manager appears. For the third time, I pry apart the cushions revealing the leftover sandwich and shaggy beast hairs hidden beneath.
Manager wasn't happy.
Manager was very unhappy with mystery employee who okayed this fine furnishing onto the sales floor. She gives us this spiel about "this should never of happened, these things are supposed to be sent back, I'm gonna find out who did this, and it ain't gonna be pretty."
Okay, fine, whatever, but here was my question, what happens when the couch is sent back (to where, JC Penny reject hell?)
"Oh, they're destroyed," replied Manager.
D-E-S-T-R-O-Y-E-D. What do you mean, like, insinuator-destroyed?
"Um, yeah, basically, but let me look at the ticket. I need to see that ticket."
She pulls the ticket, glances it over, and starts scribbling. It seemed very official with her big important pen and strong scribbles.
Then she comes close - real close-talker close. I could smell her sour cream potato chip breath. I could see her chin hairs. And she whispered, "I'll mark it down 90%."
*%#@*%*!?
Okay, this couch was originally $2000; 90% off made it $200. I don't care whose dog spent a week living the good life on its buttery goodness, that couch was SOLD (again)!
Once again, before the haters judge (and really, I know they're just jealous), the couch was probably returned to the original store then sent to the outlet. Because there were several others of the same make we knew that it wasn't a used couch from a previous season. If anything, it spent a week in some hungry man's living room, then it was returned.
I am SO not above that. Not to mention, we saved this beauty from fire and brimstone! We saved a couch! Not only did we get a holla-back-girl kinda deal, but I satisfied my desire to go green! Oh, ain't that just happy?!
Jesus loves me.
