Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Without Looking, Tell Me What Kind of Drawer Pulls You Have

.... that question was on my mind for about a half hour while I was in Target today.  I couldn't, for the life of me, remember what kind of drawer pulls I had in my bedroom.  But let's go back a bit and find out how I ended up there.

Today was Yom Kippur.  I, being a person of Jewishness, went to temple.  I also, being a person of soon-to-be-putting-her-condo-on-the-market-ness, had the cleaning lady come by to give the place a good once-over before I list the property.

Got home from services and the cleaning lady was still there.  Odd, as she's usually gone by then, but she was still cleaning.  (I have, totally, the bestest cleaning lady.)  I wanted to change out of my "temple attire" into something more comfortable, but, since she was still there, I kept the dress on.

Started rearranging knick-knacks on a shelf when she called me into the bedroom.  There was a small problem.  When she picked up my floor lamp to vacuum under it, the damn thing broke off its stand.

Cleaning lady was pretty upset about this, but, y'know, accidents happen.  Besides, the lamp was probably 10 years old; it totally lived out its useful life.  I told her not to worry, picked up the lamp, and headed downstairs with it.

I planned to throw it in the dumpster in the garage.  I could not do this because the dumpster was not in the garage.  Today was trash day, and someone had moved the overloaded dumpster to the street.  (I knew it was overloaded because, all over the garage floor, I saw pieces of glass from something I'd thrown out the other night.  I swept 'em up and went back to contemplating the lamp.)

I could take it to Goodwill, I figured.  Only needs some glue or a brace or something to put it back on its stand.  Still works.

Felt a little guilty about going to Goodwill just to ditch a broken lamp, so I went into my storage cage to see what else I could give them.  Hmmm, my old printer and scanner.  Won't be needing them.  Put the old printer and scanner in the back of my car, along with the lamp.  (Dress now covered in dust.  Oh well.)  Headed off to Goodwill.

Goodwill lady took the printer and scanner (and "miscellaneous bag of stuff" which I'd labelled for Goodwill a few years ago and had no freakin' idea what was in it -- turned out my old knife block was in there.  Let this be a lesson to you -- no reaching around in strange bags when you might come out holding a chef's knife.) -- anyway, she takes the printer, scanner, and bag, and then takes one look at the lamp and says, "We can't take that."

And I think, "Damn; she discovered my ruse to dump the busted lamp."

But that isn't it.  She didn't even notice it was broken; she said they don't accept that model.  She thinks Salvation Army might take it; they're just down the street.  She adds, "If I took it; I'd just dump it."

And I think, "That's ok with me."  So I tell her to go ahead and dump it.

She says her dumpster is full.  Says there's a dumpster at the end of the mini-mall.  ("But you didn't hear it from me.") 

Which is how I ended up, still wearing a lovely black dress, surreptitiously tossing a broken floor lamp into a dumpster behind a mini-mall.

Wiped my hands (tried not to wipe them on the dress) and went to Target to buy a new lamp -- as I don't think the Master Bedroom shows really well in the dark.

Took about 20 minutes of wandering aimlessly through Target before I found the lamp section.  (They are constantly reorganizing that store.  Can't find anything.)  And I see floor lamps there.  A nice, inexpensive lamp.  Available in several different colors: Black (no); maple with brushed nickel (no); brass (maybe?); or antiqued brass (uh-oh).

I know my bedroom set is wood, and would look nice with the maple.  (Might even be maple.)  But I know there's no brushed nickel in the bedroom.  What the hell are my drawer pulls?  Brass?  Antiqued brass?  Shoot.  I can't remember. 

I can't even remember their shape.  I stand there in Target, trying to envision my bedroom furniture.  I pull at an imaginary drawer -- is it a knob?  Is it a bar?  Is it one of them flappy bars?  (I don't think it's a flappy bar -- I don't remember the sound of them flapping back.)  I try to picture the dresser or the nightstand, and I can't get anywhere with it.  I'm sure I look like an idiot standing there in the Floor Lamps aisle, reaching out my hand to pull an imaginary knob or bar pull, but nothing feels right.

I buy the brass one and hope.

Come home and discover that, yes!  My drawer pulls are brass.  But ... well .. that's odd.  Why haven't I notice that before?

My dresser has the little flappy bar-pulls on it.  My matching nightstand has knobs.  Honest to goodness -- I bought this bedroom set three years ago -- it was the first matching set of furniture I ever bought -- and the pulls on the nightstand are completely different from the pulls on the dresser.

Oh great.  Something else to fix.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nope! I couldn't do it.  I had to go look!
Lori
http://beta.journals.aol.com/helmswondermom/DustyPages/

Anonymous said...

Oval medallion, 2 screws each -2 1/2" on center -- without looking.

<rant>But, but, m'dear, where did you ever get the notion that the hardware should match? Maybe when pigs fly, perhaps. And that isn't really likely, you know.

Really, unless you are selling the condo completely furnished, it DOESN'T FLIPPING MATTER! </rant>