The sofa's delivered, but there is a defect

 

The clock keeps ticking, and I am not yet packed for my trip to Chicago.  There is a little bit of ambivalence about this trip, and I'm still not sure of where it's coming from.  But I'll discuss that again later.

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Today was the big day.  I had a few things to do today, and got showered and out of the house by 11 am.  My first stop was to return an item purchased online at the local post office.  Then it was off to the local library to return some books, and finally to Kohl's to do an Amazon return.  About the only thing I did do to take care of myself was a quick burger at a fast food chain.  (I know my doctor would disapprove.)  And finally, I would return home to await the delivery.

Around 12:30 pm, I felt I could use a short nap, so I put the CPAP on so that I could fall to sleep if needed.  (I had the alarm set for 1:30 pm, just to be safe.)  As I was arising from semi-consciousness, the doorbell rang.  It was the deliverymen.  Within 15 minutes, the new sofa was snapped together (the sofa backs slide into place for ease of delivery and setup.)  But there was something wrong - the control for the right hand seat wasn't working.  The deliverymen noted the issue and left.  I didn't have to sign for anything -yet.

Although I still don't know when someone will come to fix things, I told the men that I won't be available until next Thursday afternoon.  Hopefully, everything will fall into place then, and I will have a fully functional sofa.

PS: Amazon sent me an email that I should expect a replacement drill tomorrow.  This is a good thing, as I can not drill into the legs of my coffee table to install casters without it.

PPS: I called Raymour & Flannigan, and got a date 10 days out for replacement of this sofa.  Hopefully, I will have no problems with this sofa - especially, when I have to stay in Mario mode until the new sofa is installed.

I bought the sofa!

 

Today's post is a short one with a large purchase - I bought the sofa!

Originally, RQS and I planned to get a pedicure today.  One problem.  I would need to present as Mario to buy the sofa, and I didn't want to change back to Marian after being out all day.  So I adjusted our plans on the fly (with a comment from RQS to keep her informed on how my mind was working) and decided to spend the day as Mario for the sofa purchase, then spend tomorrow as Marian for the pedicure.

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Around 2:30 pm (we usually get moving slowly when we have no firm plans), we drove to Yonkers and asked for the salesman who serviced us last time.  After a little bit of waiting (he was servicing another customer at the time), he showed up and I told him that we were ready to make a deal.  He was very happy.  When I asked about the price of the sofa, he started to quote the non-discounted price of the item before (as planned) RQS brought out a copy of the online price for the same item.  Almost immediately, the price adjusted downward, and we chatted for a while on stuff other than furniture.

A little while later, RQS interrupted us, noting it was time to fill in the paperwork.  So, we proceeded over to the service desk, and finalized the deal.  On the way out, the salesman said NOT to bring along the wife next time.  (He was joking, but there was the part of me that said - the two of us work too well together, and he wanted a chance to make a higher commission.)

All in all, a good day!

How can I get rid of bulky items?

 

After a decade of forced retirement, I've decided to replace much of the furniture in my apartment.  For example, my sofa is worn out and will be replaced soon.  I have three chests in the bedroom that I plan to replace with two new ones sometime in the next couple of years, and I will likely replace the entertainment center, coffee table and end tables in the living room as well. 

But to do this, I must figure out how to get rid of the bulky furniture.  I have several options for getting rid of the sofa, and none of them are that great, as they will cost me money.  The coffee and end tables can be taken apart for disposal.  Even the chests in the bedroom can be slid down the stairs and "walked" to the dumpster area for bulk pick up.  But the entertainment center poses a problem.  It weighs 450 pounds when empty. and it took 3 people to get it into my apartment.  I will need help getting it out of the apartment, and will likely need to pay a good price to remove it.

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With the above being said, there is another headache I have to deal with - annoying salespeople.  For the most part, I've found people working at furniture stores as of late to be too close to used car salesmen for comfort. All of them tend to hover around, not giving the customer enough breathing room to examine the merchandise in peace.  If you give them ANY information, they will being up the various financing terms, as well as how good their delivery process is.  But, not all of them know their product well, as was the case of one sales person we met about a month ago.  

On a hot day in July, we decided to cross the river and look at some furniture.  Entering the store, we met a fellow from the Indian subcontinent who proceeded to follow us around the store, wherever we wanted to browse.  Shortly after we mentioned what we were looking for, but after a few minutes of browsing, he tried to find an opening to sell us a mattress.  (I need a new one too, but I'm planning on going to Saatva for one designed for fat people like me. But I digress.)  When we sat on an expensive leather covered sofa, he extolled the virtues of the sofa and its construction, not knowing that we knew of another sofa made by the same people with the same frame.  He stated that this was the only one of its kind, not knowing that we knew otherwise.  He was very insistent in trying to make a sale that day, but I brushed him off.  But this wasn't the end of him.

About a week later, I got a call from the salesman.  He sounded upset that I didn't call him back to finalize a sale.  Luckily, the answering machine took the call.  In a later conversation with RQS, I stated why he wasn't going to get the sale.  First, all my credit cards are in Mario's name and I met this man in Marian mode.  But, more important, was the fact that he didn't know his merchandise well enough. We had met a second salesman, this time with me in Mario mode, and he knew his stuff.  This is the person who will get the sale when I'm ready to drop the hammer.  Again, I digress.  This morning, the first salesman woke us up, hoping that we'd answer the land line to set a date for another appointment to close the deal.  Obviously, this won't happen anytime soon....

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The question remains...

How will I end up getting rid of the old sofa?

Rambling on a little....

 

When I have no urgent commitments for the day, I tend to do nothing.  Today, I did it well.  My energy levels usually don't start rising until the afternoon.  And then, it's often too late to do much of anything. This was my day today. With that being said, I still got around to doing a little reading - something I don't make enough time to do. 

One of the things I usually put off doing is laundry.  Most of us tend to put this task off until we have enough whites or colors to fill a basket, and do the laundry one load at a time.  Living in an apartment, I have to do the laundry within a certain time period during the day, and it's not convenient for me. So, it's a task I put off until I have no choice but to take care of it.  And that will be the first thing I do tomorrow.

Like many procrastinators, I tend to put off certain tasks that I hate doing.  In my case, it's dealing with people.  I have to figure out how to get rid of a sofa, and feel much more comfortable communicating with emails, than to pick up a phone and talk with a human.  (Could it be a fear of having "no" told to me?  Or, is it a simple case of ambivalence?  Who knows?)  I did make a call to the Salvation Army to see if they could accept a donation of my sofa, and if they could pick it up.  Unfortunately, their phone system has people call a central number, which then gets forwarded to a regional site - and that site was busy.  No provision was made to take a message.  Then, I sent an email to a local outlet of Habitat for Humanity to ask the same question .  And this time, I got a response - the person I need to reach won't be back until after the holiday.  Until I know how and when my sofa will leave this apartment, I can't buy its' replacement.  AARGH!!!!

Given everything, I shouldn't be in a rush to spend money.  I have bills coming in, and I shouldn't touch my 401k unless I need to do so.  At least, I have this option, where many people my age don't have my resources.  Right now, I have 4 known big ticket expenses to plan for:

1. New Car
2. New Sofa
3. New Mattress
4. Norway Cruise
   

Of these, I only plan to finance the car with a bank loan - everything else will be paid for out of current income or savings.  But, I won't get financing from a dealer.  Most can't be trusted as far as one can spit.  If I see anything questionable on the deal, I will walk away - as I did last year when a dealer in Goshen, NY decided to hide a bogus $900 charge in the contract. 

You'll notice that I've said nothing about my partner or being transgender.  As I've noted elsewhere, this blog chronicles my life. Being trans or having a partner are only parts of my life.  But I do take interest in current events involving the transgender community, such as Canada's recent advisory to those in the LGBTIQ community in regard to visiting the USA.  It's sad to know that our Northern Neighbor would protect my rights more than my country would protect mine....

I had less than no energy for most of the day - a short post

 

I have mentioned my problems getting up in the morning, but today was a doozy!  I ended up staying in bed well past 11:00 am, and still had no energy to get up when I awoke.  It wasn't until 1:00 pm when my body started to have any energy, and I knew that I had to get moving, or I wouldn't have anything to eat before our scheduled co-op board meeting.

With all of the above being said, I still had a productive day.  We had a successful co-op board meeting, and we were able to choose a vendor for some important work we need to have done for us.

- - - - - -

I'm grateful to be able to talk with the people on the co-op board, as they gave me a couple of good ideas on what I can do with my old sofa just before I buy its replacement.  The only problem is that I have to work to figure out how I will dispose of the sofa - and that will take time.

Furniture shopping - again...

 

Now that I know what I want, I have to figure out a way to get the furniture into my apartment, and get the older stuff out.  And I don't want to spend a lot of money doing this.

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I've been tracking the price of this sofa for a while.  The price has stayed relatively stable, as it is the store's top of the line brand for reclining sofas.  Having viewed this sofa several times as Marian, I couldn't go into any of these stores as Mario to make the deal.  So I went to a new outlet and met up with a new salesman as Mario - and he gave me the information I needed to do the deal, save one: I needed to have answers on how to get rid of the old sofa.  For this, I will need to make additional arrangements, such as calling a firm like Junkluggers to remove the old sofa.

One annoying thing I noticed was that the online price was $130 less than the in-person price for the sofa.  I'll bet that this will be negotiable with the salesperson when the time comes. Until then, I'll do my research on how to get rid of the old sofa and when to do so.  Ideally, I'll be able to get the town to dispose of it on bulk pickup day, and all I would need to do is get a couple of people to help me lug the old sofa out to the dumpster area.

Once I'm done with this, I have other things I need to do - such as buying a new coffee table. Hopefully, I'll find something I like soon.