Adventures in Home Improvement

This situation could have gone one of two ways: cranky or funny. I decided to go with funny.

Last night at about 7:30, Josh and I, for lack of anything better to do, decided to make our weekly trip to Lowes to pick up paint, this time for the hallway we are painting this weekend. A couple of months ago during one of our trips, we stumbled upon a free-standing yard swing that we really liked, but at $150 decided to hold off for a sale. So, we've been checking on this swing week after week for two months, and last week we found it on sale for $80. Halleluia!

It was sold out.

Josh had them call the other stores. No luck. So this week, defeated but hopefull, we checked lawn and garden one more time on the off-chance that some had been shipped in or one had been returned. No swings, but a different treasure awaited us. Before us sat a stack of patio chairs at 50% off, less than $10 a piece, and a patio table, again 50% off, for $35. Coincidently, we had eaten our first meal outside this past week on the patio set that came with the house. The rust had practically flaked into our food as we ate. So we decided that $75 for a table and 4 chairs was a fantastic deal and loaded them onto a cart (or "buggy" as the South Carolineans call it).

A little after 8:00, we picked up our paint, visited the register and headed toward the car.

Hm. The car.

People who are truly handy own handy things and have handy ways of transporting their handy items. For example, my dad has a large truck with a hydrolic lift on the bed. He also has a trailor, a mini-van, and a tractor to use as he needs them for his handy endevors. We own an Eclipse and a Civic. We are not handy. And we left all of our handy family and friends in Illinois, so we're not even handy by association anymore.

We spent a decent amount of time studying the car (Eclipse), imagining possible scenarios for this furniture to fit, like those tests in grade school where they made you flip shapes around in your head. Josh swore up and down that it wasn't going to fit in his little car. I knew that it all was, so we started with the table and he humored me. To his surprise, after adjusting the seats and such, the table squeezed in. Hooray! The chairs, however, would never fit with the table. No problem. I'd wait for him with the chairs while he took the table home and got my car, which is bigger. Good deal. I pulled my "buggy" full of chairs over to an empty pallate in the outdoor garden and had a seat. To kill time I called my sister, who also needed to kill a little time as she was holed up in her hotel room in Maine (she's a pilot for those of you not in-the-know).

We waxed philosophical for a while until Josh returned with my car. Back to our puzzle. Now, you would think that with my car being bigger, the stuff would fit better. However, after another 20 minutes of jamming chair legs into places they don't belong (including out the sunroof), we knew that the Civic was not going to work. The openings were too small. Exasperated, Josh drove off again, this time to unload the table by himself from his car and bring the Eclipse back. I became very disappointed at the thought that we might just have to return the chairs. Then realized that this would not be an option tonight, as Lowes had just closed. It was 9:00. Then I panicked a little. We might have to leave the chairs for dead! And since I had long removed the chairs from the "buggy" to try and load them up, the buggy was gone. So I sat alone for another 20 minutes in the middle of the Lowes parking lot under a streetlight in my new patio chairs and called Ashley again.

Here came Josh and the Eclipse, this time armed with plenty of twine to tie down his hatchback in case it wouldn't close. And, thankfully, after another 10 minutes of maneuvering, we got the chairs to fit! We were even able to close the hatchback, sans twine. There was, however, a catch: Because we had to fold the passenger seat all the way forward, the only way I was getting home last night was to curl up behind the chairs in the "trunk." I felt like an idiot climbing back there as all of the Lowes employees vacated the store for the evening. To make matters worse, Josh closed the lid and then snapped a picture through the window.

We made it home a little after 9:30, people and items in one piece, having identified the exact location of a mysterious grinding over his right rear wheel. And, having ridden as a passenger in my husband's trunk, he may never comment on the condition of my car's interior again. I was FILTHY getting out of that car, thank you very much. But, it was all worth it to be able to relax with a tastey meal in the great outdoors of our backyard without having to worry about contracting tetanus.