The Moose in the Closet: Furnishings

I haven’t been around here in a while and I apologize for that. Work, traveling, and POSTCARDS been keeping me busy. Over the next couple of months I’ll be in NYC, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, somewhere in Iowa, and San Diego – if you’re in any of those cities and if I like you send me an email and maybe we can get a beer.

Real quick, POSTCARDS is shaping up nice, the Live Journal is being updated more frequently than MITC, and I’ll probably have a themed week here next week – all about Long Island.

As mentioned, our new place on Connecticut Avenue had nothing but a suitcase filled with clothes, an air mattress, and some ramen noodles for the first week we lived in it. We didn’t have much money to spend on furniture so we needed to prioritize our purchases.

We stole towels from the hotel so we didn’t really need those yet. We got a skillet and a sauce pan to make dinner. Stole some plastic forks, knives, spoons and sporks from a variety of fast food restaurants. As far as necessities for survival went – we were doing ok.

So the next obvious step was to purchase a TV.

A 32-inch RCA that I got for free at Radio Shack in exchange for signing up for MSN for five years; an agreement I ultimately defaulted on and, to my surprise, they never tried to collect what I owed them. The Radio Shack was about ten blocks downhill from our apartment and there was no way in fuck I was going to carry that monstrous TV uphill. Brought that shit on the bus, pushed everybody out of the way. Even the bus driver said I shouldn’t bring the TV on the bus but I gave him this sad look and explained it was only for ten blocks.

Get the TV home and drag that shit up to our fourth floor apartment. Robin’s chilling at home and I walk in with this TV and surprise her – she was all worried that she was going to miss WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? The shit we do for love.

Of course, I realized I forgot to buy an antenna for the TV (no cable at this point) so I go all the way back to Radio Shack to buy one. We got everything set just in time for prime time shows and fought with the antenna all night to try and get a better reception. The next day we ordered cable.

You’d think our second purchase would be a futon or, perhaps, a couple of stools to put around the little kitchen island so we didn’t need to eat our breakfast on the floor. What we actually purchased was, well, kind of embarrassing.

A Papasan Chair from Pier 1 Imports.

There was a Pier 1 about seven blocks downhill from us. We were in there pricing furniture when Robin pointed out they had Papasan Chairs, something she ALWAYS wanted, on sale. So we bought one.

I carried it home, of course.

Shortly after that the packages I had in storage in Boston showed up and we found ourselves with a bunch of books and trinkets – things that seem like high priority in college but when you don’t have anywhere to put them you realize how ridiculous they are.

So, third item? A book shelf. Pier 1, again.

I carried it home, of course.

Finally got some stools and a little cabinet for the TV. Around this time, though, the air mattress started to grow tumors. The stitches were popping out and our bodies would be draped across a semicircle as we slept – we’d wake up with back and neck pain. We finally had to buckle down and get a futon.

After getting denied because of bad credit at two mattress stores, we finally found a place that would sell us a futon. Big-ass thing, cherry stained wood frame, queen sized, extra plush mattress.

We got that one delivered, thankfully.

So, after a month we had the apartment relatively well furnished. Most of it on credit, of course.

Labels: mitc

Furnishings

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

0 Comments

Previous Posts