A Mess Of Pottage

A month ago I went to IKEA with 2 friends and bought new red slipcovers for our Ektorp couch and armchairs, because Larry and I are never, ever going to be able to agree on a new couch.  Desperate to replace our 7-year-old faded orange-red corduroy slipcovers, I got some red twill ones that promised not to embarrass me when I had the neighborhood ladies over for Bunko.

The color not taken...

But, once I came home and put them on the furniture, they didn't look right.  Too...red. I'm just being picky, I thought. It's fine. And then Brian walked into the room and said, "Those are too red." Later, a friend popped in and, upon being asked for her honest opinion, said, "Too red.  Cherry red. Doesn't look right with the Lenox Tan walls."

I waited for Larry, hoping he would deem them passable.  But no, he agreed with everyone else, so I took off the new slipcovers, crammed them (badly) back into their flat-pack boxes, and sadly put the bedraggled but properly hued ones back on.  And we went on with our lives.


Only, I had to return the slipcovers.  Which meant a 40-minute drive to IKEA, where I wasn't even sure I would get my money back, since the covers weren't put into their boxes properly. We put the boxes in my car and I drove around town with them for 4 weeks, until Larry said, "Hey, we need to return those, don't we?"  Because we're organized like that.

Now, understand here that Larry hates IKEA, with all his heart and soul.  HATES.  So, feeling as desperate as Esau was for his mess of pottage, I offered a deal: if Larry would take the darn things back, he was off the hook for Mother's Day.  No chocolates, no flowers, nothing.  Just get those boxes OUT OF MY CAR.

My knight in shining armor knows a good deal when he sees one, so he used his Saturday morning to drive 40 minutes to a place he hates and fix my mistake.  24 years of marriage tells me that that's a pretty romantic thing for a guy to do for the mother of his children. And I don't care one whit what happens tomorrow.

That would be me on the right, only without a beard

Besides, I've already picked up a container of HaagenDazs strawberry ice cream to enjoy on the big day. Maybe I'll even share it with Larry, if we can hide from the kids long enough. I think he's earned it.



[Ektorp image: IKEA.com]
[Mess of Pottage image: WikiArt]