Wild Night

Sub-title Too Long For The Web: In Which An Effort To Unload Some Unused Furniture Becomes An Opportunity To Show What Nice People We Are

The main title has nothing to do with KU’s loss Tuesday night to a very mediocre Arizona State team. A game in which Bill Self was ejected, Jacque Vaughn received a technical, and Elmarko Jackson was called for a flagrant foul, all of which seemed like garbage calls. Didn’t matter, KU was more garbage than those calls. Suddenly the Jayhawks, after winning eight straight, have lost four of six. Two of those capital B Bad losses. I guess it’s a good thing our spring break is a little early and I will be in Mexico during the rounds of 32 and Sweet 16, because surely this team will lose in the first weekend and not available for the second.

No, this post is about an evening when using Facebook Marketplace to get rid of a 23-year-old armoire took an unexpected turn.

We bought this armoire in Kansas City, just before we got married and moved to Indy. It served as our main media cabinet for 15 years. When we moved to our current house, it went to the upstairs bonus room and was also a media cabinet, hosting our Wii and Xbox. Many hours of Minecraft, Madden, and 2K were played on it.

S has been getting antsy about doing “something” with that room, so asked if I could put the armoire on Marketplace offering it to anyone who was willing to pick it up. I drug my feet a little, because every time I sell something on Marketplace it turns into a whole thing. Stupid questions from people. Rude responses. Folks that act interested and then ghost you. You know what I’m talking about.

I finally listed it on Sunday. Sure enough, the crazies came out. Within a couple hours I had five “Hi, is this still available?” auto messages. I replied affirmatively to each and got no response.

Three people responded with “Location?” even though I clearly – with our specific part of Indy, our zip code, and the high school across the street – indicated a particular area. I ignored those fools.

One guy sent me a long message, like three sentences, all in Spanish.

By late Monday I had received 20 responses, only one of which replied when I sent a message back. And then that person disappeared after I told them it was theirs.

Tuesday morning I had a couple new messages. One woman responded immediately. We went back and forth on timing and agreed she and her husband would pick it up that evening. Nice!

When S got home from work she, L, and I worked to get the armoire downstairs. I didn’t think it was going to be very heavy. I was wrong. Very wrong. It was a huge pain in the ass to get to the bottom of the steps. Then we realized it would not make the turn without gouging the walls. As the ladies supported its weight I unscrewed the legs to see if that helped. It did a little, but not enough. After about 20 minutes of fighting the armoire and stairs, and each other a little, we braced it and quickly ate dinner.

We gave it another shot. Just when we somehow got the offending corner to clear the wall, the doorbell rang, the folks picking it up had arrived. We scrambled to get it balanced so they could come in and help, as we needed at least one more set of adult hands.

The husband was kind of a big guy and joined me on the heavy side while S and L took the lighter end. We got it to the front door then outside.

The couple had driven two small SUVs, a Honda CRV and a Volkswagen Tiguan. I silently cussed to myself. I had clearly put the dimensions of this beast on my listing. There was no way it was going to fit in the CRV. I was doubtful about the Tiguan. L grabbed a tape measure. I measured. The CRV was indeed too small. The wife started transferring their three kids car seats from the Tiguan, assuming it would fit there. I suggested I measure that first. Two inches too narrow.

Shit.

This would be a good time to mention that it was pouring rain in the midst of all this. The armoire was sitting out exposed. We were all getting pelted. My glasses were completely wet. This would also be a good time to mention this couple was very nice. Three little kids. She is a nurse, he works in accounting at the first hospital S worked at. They are from Canada, had the accents and general niceness and everything.

S and I looked at each other, both silently cursing, knowing what she would say next.

“I bet it will fit in my car, go measure.”

Sure enough we had three inches to spare in the Telluride. I looked at the Canadians and asked, “Where do you live?” fearing the response.

Turns out they only lived 25 minutes away. In a not a great part of town. I was worried they were going to say Ft. Wayne or something ridiculous like that.

“Well,” I said, “we got it downstairs, it’s not going back in the house. We’ll bring it to you.”

They protested a bit but relented and helped us load it up. The wife thanked us over and over, telling us how wonderful we were.

We got their address and jumped on the highway. Again, it was POURING. We saw a car on the opposite side of I–465 that had hydroplaned and spun into the median. We had the seats so far forward I was all folded over myself, and sitting sideways. There was no way I could have driven. Luckily S has short legs.

We got to the west side and were pleased that while they are adjacent to the rough part of that area, their neighborhood was old and quiet.

We backed into their driveway and hustled the armoire into their garage as the rain fell even harder. The wife told us we were crazy. We agreed. I think she meant it in a good way.

They again thanked us profusely. They offered us gas money, which we declined. She is going to use the armoire in a home bakery she is started. She offered us a loaf of sour dough bread she pulled from her freezer. I just had a piece; it was pretty good.

We said our goodbyes and wished them luck.

On the way home we gave ourselves credit for being such nice people. My back was quite sore today. I’m not sure if it was from the wrestling of the armoire or the patting myself on the back afterwards.

We also laughed at how the easy thing to do would have been to say, “Well, sorry it didn’t work out,” shove it into our garage, and go inside and start wading through the next round of Marketplace fools, waiting for someone with a pickup truck who wanted to get it.

On our drive to their house, I was texting a couple buddies and one replied, “This is how stories that end up on Dateline start.” Which made me laugh. When we got home I called up to L, “We’re back, they didn’t murder us.” She said, “They’re Canadian, they weren’t going to kill you!”

So that was the wild saga of us trying to give away a piece of furniture that predated our marriage by a couple weeks. There are a couple more pieces in that room S is toying with getting rid of. I’m already thinking of ways I can be VERY CLEAR in my listings on the sizes and weights of each so someone doesn’t show up in a Mini Cooper to claim our 4’x4’ ottoman.