Monday, January 16, 2017

How To Get A Southern Gentleman To Work For You For Free

I received an automated voice message, an email, and two texts last week telling me that this chair I ordered at a store in Salt Lake City, which would be delivered "for sure before Christmas," would arrive on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I was told I needed to be home to greet the delivery people. I knew this wouldn't be a problem because we suck at celebrating this holiday so I wouldn't have anything else going on, but my office would be closed for the day.

Then on Sunday I received all of the automated messages again, this time with a "window" for delivery, which was something like "sometime between the first crescent moon and the howling of the snowchest wolf."

I've never been a delivery service company so everything I'm about to say is fully marinated in ignorance and probably served with a side of inadvertent pretense, BUT: why is it so difficult to schedule a delivery for a specific time?

I kind of get it when a service provider can't give anything more specific than a one or two-hour window because they have appointments throughout the day and it may be difficult to gauge how long it might take to fix a problem before actually seeing the problem.

But furniture delivery companies? Can't you use a planner or something and generally anticipate how long deliveries are going to take?

Knowing that I would be home starting this morning until possibly Labor Day waiting for this thing, I texted Matt and manipulated him into bringing Mr. Pants to my house to help me wait.

I'm using the word "manipulate" instead of more misleading verbs like "ask" or "suggest" when I talk about getting Matt to do things because I feel like my conscience is more clear if I at least own the deceit.

Matt showed up sometime around 8:30, Mr. Pants in tow, demanded that I cook him breakfast, nibbled on some stale bread I fetched from the back of the pantry, and then left to go to some eye appointment because he thinks he's going blind in one eye now and "you'll understand when you get to be my age."

Mr. Pants and I were waiting for actually not that long when two very nice delivery people brought a chair inside.

Matt had just gotten back from his appointment by then and his eyes were dilated so wide that they actually sucked all of the light from the room and left a general darkness everywhere.

Matt is not going blind, by the way. The doctor said he's perfectly fine. But it's hard to know if the eye doctor's opinion of Matt is actually reliable considering that he gave it while staring into Matt's smizing seductive green eyes. Most people don't even remember agreeing to do things for him when he uses them as a weapon. I spent an entire Saturday demolishing a bathroom with a sledge hammer in his house once after he texted me a picture of his right eye close up.

What's that? You don't believe me? Here. Look into these eyes and tell them they are flawed:


What were we talking about? Global warming? Kimmy Gibbler? Slap Bracelets?

Oh yes.

The moment the delivery guys left we realized that the chair was not going to fit in its intended place. And so for the next two hours we completely rearranged my entire house. And when I say "we" I mean "Matt" and when I say "rearranged my entire house" I mean "dragged heavy furniture up and down stairs mumbling obscenities in such a strong southern accent that you now have to use a Mississippi zip code to send mail to Salt Lake City."

By the time he was done I decided I didn't like how I had told him to do it and I kind of wanted everything put back exactly how it was before but I was too afraid to tell him this because he was getting hangry, which I knew because he was starting to say cranky catchphrases like, "that's not how my momma raised me" and "the south shall rise agaaaaeeeeiiiiaaaan."

So we left the house to find some food for him because I wasn't going to get away with the stale-bread trick twice in the same day.

Now I need to figure out what to do with this thing.


As always, thanks, Matt. You are everything Tami hopes to be one day. But with a better gumbo recipe.

~It Just Gets Stranger

24 comments:

  1. Maybe we were supposed to read between the lines here, but thanks to the title of this post I thought we were going to get, like, a step by step set of instructions, in three languages with a page devoted to troubleshooting. Not having found that, all j picked up on how to get them to work for free was "stale bread" (will only work once). Is that the trick then?

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    1. Sorry. My writing got derailed by smizing.

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    2. I will allow it. My reading got detailed by smizing, too. I half expected you to say, "the list was right there, right under the picture of the Pantses, and maybe you need to have your eyes checked, Amy."

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  2. Now I need to scroll back up to check what the name of this post is. I'm curious about this unfulfilled promise.

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  3. That Pants family got it goin ON

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  4. I would just like to point out that Mr. Pants has human eyes.

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  5. Okay, I'm not even shitting you with this story. I dreamt last night that you called me and said "grab your pajamas and some fireworks and meet outisde asap" and then I wasn't fast enough so you knocked on my door and my parents (don't know why my parents were there) let you in. Then you harassed me until I hurried so much I forgot to put a bra on. And then we drove around my neighborhood picking up a bunch of my childhood friends in a similarly aggressive manner. I'm so glad i read your post today so I would rememberthat!!

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    1. Please run this through the Internet dream interpretation sites and return and report.

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    2. Haha this us a hilarious idea. So fireworks are "an omen of enthusiasm, creativity and talent" while forgetting your bra "indicates that you have no discipline or control" hahaha! I just feels like that is weirdly applicable to this blog 😂

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    3. I dream about being bra-less all the time. No wonder. Can't say I've ever had a dream with Eli in it, but I wouldn't be mad if I did...

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    4. While my recent Eli dream didn't include fireworks, I DID get tickets to his show. Then he showed up at our house in his snuggie and my husband wasn't so sure we wanted to go, since Snuggie-Eli set up camp in our kitchen and wouldn't leave, even when we had company coming, etc.

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  6. That is a big ass chair.

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  7. I'm not sure if it's a good sign or a bad sign that I find Mr. Pants's's's's eyes every bit as seductive as Matt's in that picture.

    Not feeling that chair though. Sorry.

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  8. I think Mr. Pants's eyes are more dilated than Matt's.

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  9. Is that chair intended for two people? Is it a "cuddler"?

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    1. Thanks, co-workers think I am crazy for laughing out loud when no one is near my desk!

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  10. The Pants family has magical eyes. Both of them. I hope they use their power for good.

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  11. Matt is probably going to win friend of the year again and it's only January!

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  12. 1. I was going to be your best comment maker and impress you with my wit, but then... lazy
    2. How can I look at his eyes when he has that jaw?!
    3. My 11 year old daughter said to me this very morning, "At my school it's super funny if you say Mr, then anything, then Pants... like Mr. Math Pants or Mr. Recess Pants...Hahahahahaha"
    I thought of you and the Pants family...Just wanted you to know that you are in with the 11 year old comedy scene.

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  13. "dragged heavy furniture up and down stairs mumbling obscenities in such a strong southern accent that you now have to use a Mississippi zip code to send mail to Salt Lake City."

    Actually made me LOL!

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  14. I would do anything those eyes asked me to do! ANYTHING!!

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