Bought A Sofa!

Monday 01/30/2006 2:25 PM

My first furniture purchase (excluding office stuff, you know, desks and chairs and file cabinets).

World Market (not to be confused with Fresh Market) opened a few months ago where the Barnes & Noble used to be over on Apalachee Parkway. The first time I sauntered in, I fell in love with their Bruno Leather Sofa, but there was no way I was going to be paying $1,100+ for a sofa anytime soon.

It was around this time that I had started playing draw poker online and was making a little bit of money. Well, you know how that worked out... and after my digital camera, I needed to figure out what I was going to buy next with my poker money.

I kept thinking about that sofa.

So I've decided to remodel my backroom (presently used for my clothes and file and miscellaneous storage). Bought a new carpet (more on that some other time — remind me if I forgot to talk about it) and started saving my chips for the sofa. Since I'm averaging about $600 per month playing draw poker, I figured it wouldn't take long until I could get that sofa.

At the beginning of last week I had about $1,900 in my various poker accounts and it was looking like February was going to be sofa month. (FYI, I keep $1,000 in my bankroll, so I was aiming for about $2,200 before I could consider buying the sofa.) I just happened to wander onto the World Market web site last week and I saw the amazing front page advertisement promoting a 40% off coupon if you sign up for their newsletter. This was surely too good to be true, I thought, but sure enough, it worked! I got the coupon.

The next day, I rushed into World Market only to discover they didn't have the Bruno out on the floor. I asked someone if they had any in the back and, as she pointed to one of the two Tribeca sofas they had on display, she explained that was the only Bruno they had in stock.

I told her, "Well, that's not the Bruno. That's the Tribeca."

Barely able to contain her resentment for me, the idiot customer, she pointed at the tag, which clearly said that it was the Bruno sofa, and she said, "That's the only Bruno we've ever had."

Now the Tribeca sofa is normally $1,499 and it was mis-labeled as a Bruno for $1,099. It's too bad I didn't actually want the Tribeca because with it mis-priced $400 below retail PLUS the 40% off coupon, I would have gotten the deal of the year. But I didn't want the Tribeca.

I calmly explained to the woman, "I don't mean to be argumentative, but I've been drooling over the Bruno for about two months and that is not the Bruno." I then grabbed a table-top display for the Tribeca line and held it up next to the "Bruno" sofa and asked her, "Doesn't the sofa on the floor here look suspiciously like the Tribeca sofa in this picture?"

Her eyes glazed over and it was clear she wasn't even trying to pay attention to what I was saying and she repeated, "Well, that's the only Bruno we have in stock."

She went on to explain that they get their furniture shipment in on Mondays and I was welcome to check back. I left the store totally frustrated and worried I wasn't going to be able to get my sofa before the coupon expired on February 4th.

The next evening, I told Candy I was going back to World Market to make sure they didn't have a Bruno somewhere in the store. She offered to come with me and when we got there, we saw they still had the two Tribeca sofas on the floor (though they were both now correctly labeled as Tribecas, not Brunos). I found a World Market employee stocking a shelf (not the same person I had run into the day before) and asked if they had any furniture in the back.

Long story short... They had a Bruno in the back. I bought it with the coupon and saved $438. When I got home, I immediately transferred $710 from my poker account to my bank account to cover the cost of the sofa. The next evening (Friday), my brother-in-law George helped me bring it home. It is still wrapped up while the rest of my backroom awaits its pending transformation into what we are calling Peter's Pad.

Woohoo!

(FYI, according to World Market, you can use one of these 40% off coupons every day between now and February 4th. In-store use only, though, so if you don't have a World Market in your area, you're out of luck. To get the coupon, just visit the World Market web site and click the big 40% Off SIgn Up And Save ad on the right side of the page. If they take it down before February 4th, e-mail me and I'll send you a link to the coupon.)

File Under: Furniture; Life Happening; Shopping
Music: Tori Amos "The Original Bootlegs"

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