got up early this morning, thinking i would hit the salvage and thrift stores and find a dresser.
hah. it was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. i’m out of touch with the second-hand groove. once upon a time, i knew when the trucks arrived with new donations, and i knew when it was most likely that furniture would be found.
got me some catching up to do, yessirreebob.
but there was humor in it. stopped at this one place… name was something like ‘cheap charlie’s used furniture’ or some such. the place… well… imagine if you will that friend whose garage is a triumph of pack-rat perfection. now imagine that friend had a tornado hit that garage. now imagine that friend took a shovel and simply chucked it all back in without thought.
that was ‘cheap charlie’s’.
it was an amazing thing, really. i didn’t know you could balance things of such differing sizes, weights, and shapes like that. i wound my way through tiny paths, scared to death to do more than look for fear of an avalanche from which i could not hope to dig free.
in the meantime ‘charlie’ and some elderly female relative were arguing at the counter. well, i think it was an argument. it may well have simply been their fashion of familial enjoyment. the woman had that peculiar nasal tone that can jolt every verterbrae in your spine. she played mine like a first chair floutist.
the man, younger and decidedly bachelor, was hovering between trying to placate her and trying not to let me see him cringing for my presence and witnessing of it. an interesting thing, that. his eyebrows and eyes were trying very hard not to roll when i did glance his way… because she would have seen it and apparently, that would bring on nuclear winter. but the body language was clear.
i set my face to careful neutrality and pretended myself deaf as a stone as i made the circuit through the den of perpetual perils and slowly back to the door.
by the time i got there, she was harranguing him over not having scotch tape at the front, “all this junk you have, and no tape? what would your mother say?” (i swear, those were her exact words. i had to choke back a laugh.)
i was looking at a package of scotch tape. for sale. trying to be helpful, compassionate, i picked it up and turned to her with a smile, “here…” i called, “here is some scotch tape.”
‘Charlie’ immediately interrupts as the woman is heading to get it from me, “oh no, you don’t want that. it’s old and probably doesn’t have any stick left to it.”
i could feel my brows lift. so many things implicit in that statement… he was oblivious to them all… more concerned that this woman not find the tape unhelpful, i think. the woman smiled to me, “such a dear!” she gushed. and then she shot him a look that clearly said without words, “you didn’t even know you had tape in your own store.”
now i was cringing. i had almost made it to the door… so close to escaping and forever writing off ‘cheap charlie’s’ as a place to shop. but she was between me and the door, turned to him, behind the counter, chattering away about some relative she was loaning her car to… she turned to me and said, sotto vox, “i loan her my car because they can’t afford one… and now, i can only run my own errands two days a week!”
i murmured sympathetic noises and prayed for her to move just three inches left so i could get out the door.
it was like being trapped in a sitcom. these two were now officially at the ‘hammer and tongs’ stage and i was trying very hard not to be rude and just push past her. it was that uncomfortable.
eventually, she said ‘goodbye’ and turned just enough for me to get past her… i immediately made as if to open the door for her, making sure i was OUTSIDE to hold it.
she thanks me for holding the door and leans in to say conspiratorially, “he’s a good boy… his mother hoped he would go to law school. but he just enjoys antiques so much.” she shrugs and rolls her eyes at me and says, “what’s a mother to do, he enjoys it.” then, without another word, she turns and trundles off to her car.
simply. amazing.
i’m thinking i’ll wait on a dresser.