Graham hasn’t been working this week, since the job he was on last week only lasted, well, that one week. It’s been really nice having him home, though, especially since I work in the house. We’ve had time to spend together working on fixing up our house. He has the whole day, and I have the parts of the day when I’d be commuting if I was still a cubicle dweller.
I took Tuesday off and we went to the National Home Show to get some ideas about decorating and renovating our house. It was nice to get out of the house, and even better to attend a trade show of this size in the middle of a weekday rather than on the weekend. Unfortunately, we found the Home Show to be mostly filled with vendors who were unwilling to even hand out a business card to the likes of us. There were also several vendors who were “screening” us potential customers to make sure we’re serious enough about our new design project, lest their time be wasted. We encountered a lot of very snooty “design people” who barely took the time to say “excuse me” as they bustled by, being so much more important than we are and all.
Graham and I agreed that it would be so super awesome if we were stinking rich next year (never mind how we got rich, it’s a fantasy, after all)…we would visit the Home Show wearing our jeans and sneakers, just like this year. Then we’d go all Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman on their asses. Not skanky hooker Julia Roberts, mind you, but swanky polished Julia Roberts who visits that boutique on Rodeo Drive, telling the stuck-up salespeople what a horrible mistake they’d made in judging her by the Lycra spandex whore-gear she’d been sporting just the day before.
We’d go right up to that furniture salesman, the one who told me he didn’t give out cards at the show, his prices were only good that day, thanks anyway, and remind him how he wouldn’t help me.
“You work on commission, right?” I’d ask.
“That’s right,” he’d mutter, barely noticing me, his eyes glued to his Blackberry.
Then we’d flash him our glimmering gold card and Graham would say, “BIG mistake. BIG,” before we flounced off together to the appliance people, where we’d splurge on high-end stainless steel pieces for our kitchen before his very eyes.
Yes, that’s right; in the world of redecorating and renovation, Graham and I are pre-Richard Gere Julia Roberts. We’ll show them what a mistake those window vendors made in judging us! We’ll buy our windows elsewhere!
It turns out the best part of our day that day was our stop in at IKEA on the way home. We drooled all over each and every kitchen display in the place, but came home with just a couple of Billy bookcases to get my books up off the basement floor. I’ve wanted my very own “wall of books” for YEARS now, and today I have one. And I LOVE it.
I didn’t need any snooty designer to select it or put it together for me, either.