ArcaMax

A twin delight and horror of moving into a new house is finding furniture that fits uncharted nooks and crannies.

For instance, while my old home had one dining area, my new home also has a dreaded "breakfast nook." This means that we are to travel between tables to masticate depending on the meal's formality. It's like a suburban version of "The Gilded Age," but instead of taking tea in a parlor wearing our casual-most day tuxedos, we end up hoovering muesli wearing ratty pajamas under drop ceilings.

Before our recent spate of hurricanes in my home of Florida, I did my level best to outfit our new home with secondhand furniture. I single-handedly forced a TV stand from a roadside into my hatchback while wearing high heels, and yes, I do regret it.

These days, though, I'm skeptical and believe that everything on Facebook Marketplace and the like is covered in mold. Until that feeling abates, the fact remains: We need places to sit.

My family and I have now patronized nearly every big-box furniture store in pursuit of magical, midprice unicorns. We've gone to Kane's, City Furniture, Rooms To Go, La-Z-Boy. Each store has a monolithic fluorescence, carrying what appears to be the nation's 16 universal couches. It all started to blur together when I walked into Ashley and literally thought I was accidentally back in Rooms To Go. Those Property Brothers really are everywhere.

In all of these stores, it is customary to be followed as though you are wanted by the FBI. A worker will greet you and ask what you're looking for, as if the answer could be "a ballgown" and not "home furnishings." They will hand you a card with their personal cell. Then they will "give you some time to look around" while simultaneously slinking behind you in the manner of the Peculiar Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak.

"CAN I ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS?" they will say, emerging seven minutes later from behind a leather sectional while you grip your pounding heart.

Along our journeys, we identified a small patio set at Rooms To Go that worked for a specific outdoor nook and cranny. If you're counting, that's three tables. That's too many tables, now that I type it.

Having selected the third table (mistake) on one of the previous FBI counterintelligence visits, we decided to wait for the Veterans Day sale. Even if this set wasn't included, it had become clear that staff members could produce a variety of discount codes should one threaten to walk out in a "Pretty Woman" manner.

"CAN I ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS?"

"We like this," I said of the patio set. "Is it part of the sale?"

My abundant charms, they were useless. In her 25 years, the salesperson said, she'd never seen that model go on sale, as if this mass-produced slab of wood was an amulet that opened a forbidden temple. But say somehow it did go on sale between now and when it was delivered. Then they could apply the Veterans Day savings of... $11.

"Eleven... dollars?" I said, sure there was a miscommunication. There was not.

This is how American corporations celebrate the concept of military service? With... $11? Far be it for me to claim math expertise, but if the tab came to a grand, $11 would be a discount of 1.1%. I spent $11 in gas just to get to Rooms To Go! And I had to drive on the highway, which shaved years off my time to eat meals at multiple tables! Now I was angry, and I still only had one table when I clearly needed three!

I studied floor model umbrellas on clearance and thought, what am I doing with my life? Am I incapable of displaying any business acumen? I would need to storm out like Julia Roberts and really mean it. This last bit of justice would lie in the delicious, vengeful execution, the seriousness of my tone. Big mistake! Big! Huge!

"Thank you!" I said. Everyone nodded, devoid of emotion. We drove down the street to City Furniture.

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Stephanie Hayes is a columnist at the Tampa Bay Times in Florida. Follow her at @stephhayes on X or @stephrhayes on Instagram.

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