Friday, August 28, 2009

My Fahter's Sit-In: A Man Always Knows How To Find A Bargain

My parents, as a practice, were never very political. I can never once, even in the past election cycle, remember my parents discussing politics in front of their children. When pressed they would dodge the question, saying, "I'll probably vote for the winner." There are two things that could explain this.
  1. They wanted their children to form their own political opinions
  2. They were really as lazy as they sounded.
Neither of these would be odd if true.

My father once did take part in a sit-in though, in a furniture store. For weeks my father lusted after a blue leather La-Z-Boy brand recliner. It was a significant upgrade from the blue corduroy La-Z-Boy recliner that currently resided on the brown shag carpeting in the basement. This chair was a testaments to my father's fear of change. It was held together mainly with duct tape and a fear of having to watch the Pirates game in the living. It had survived both winter and summer "Couch Olympics" and would apparently just fall apart randomly because as my siblings and I would say "We were just sitting on it and this happened." Our cat having birthed kittens in the bowels of the chair was the final straw.

$600 is an exorbitant amount of money to a 10-year-old boy, but you must assume that you father deserves it. My mother saw it differently. Then one miraculous Saturday evening the unused half of our double front door swings open and we see my father carrying it on top of his head, head on the seat and the recliner on his back. "How much, Neil?"

$300! I went there this morning and offered $200. I was there when they opened, in fact I knocked at 10AM sharp. I strolled right up to it as if I owned it already. In my mind I think I already knew they would give it to me. '$200,' I said with disgust as if I was paying twice for it. They said, "No way," and paused, they paused Sherry, to add the "sir," to make it that much more insulting. I said, 'That's perfectly fine, I can wait a little.' And I parked my butt right in this chair and I sat. At first the sailsman didn't know what to do, he tried to go about his day, oh my yes he did. But, each time he would walk by he would would avoid my gaze with a little more.... purpose. So, it gets to be Noon, two, three, and I'm still in that chair, and now there is no way I can't get this chair, it's been 6 hours. At this point the salesman won't even come in to my part of the store, it was now my part of the store. I see him whisper to his manager one more time and he walks over to me. I figure they are going to call the cops if I don't leave. I am weighing the options of fighting for a bargain or going downtown. He comes up to me and says, "$300?" I told him it was a deal and I picked up the chair like a bag of lemons and take it to the register.


"Neil, you spent all day in a chair to get some money off a chair?" But he was already gone down to his man cave to sit on his spoils. About ten minutes later we hear him call up the stairs,
"Sherry, did you make $300 today, because I did."




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