The ottoman incident

current mood: thoroughly amused
The other night I went with Tammi to a model home furniture sale in Maricopa. We found a bunch of shiz we liked and purchased it for super cheap. Then when we ventured upstairs in the nicest home Tammi finds an ottoman that she would like to get for her own home. We decide that it would be a super idea for us to take this ottoman down the stairs so that Bob, Tammi's old boss who was running the sale, wouldn't have to do it and might give her an extra deal on it. (I don't know, it made sense at the time.) So we turn the thing on it's side and begin to roll it out of the bedroom and to the top of the stairs.

I am holding a lamp in my arms and Tammi is on the phone and we get it down the first step when I suggest we carry it and that perhaps Tammi should get off the phone. She says it will be easy "like rolling a pizza" ... whatever the hell that means... I am at the moment holding onto one of the 4 wooden legs attached to the bottom when Tammi tells me to let go 'cause she's got it. So I do... omg.

It happened in slow motion. And in my mind that ottoman destroyed the entire house as it bounded down the stairs and bounced off the walls and the bannister. In my mind it scratched and left giant holes in the wall, plowed through the bannister, knocked over and broke all the furniture in the living room and bounced up and embedded itself, legs first, halfway up the living room wall above the couch.

But, miraculously, it didn't. Somehow it rolled down the stairs, bounced against the wall and the bannister, hit the landing, turned and managed to land upright at the bottom. Tammi and I are still at the top of the stairs and at this point just look at each other with astonishment. "I pictured that going a lot worse," Tammi said. Then I start laughing. The hard, stomach-hurting, tears streaming down my cheeks, going to pee my pants kind of laughing.

The laughing and crying continued downstairs where we sit on the ottoman and can't help but picture what it would look like embedded in the wall and just what exactly we would say to Bob to explain the situation. When Bob comes in the door Tammi looks at him with all seriousness in her face and says, "I brought this downstairs for your convenience, Bob. Think I could get a deal?" Then I start cracking up again because I can picture her saying that with the ottoman stuck in the wall behind her.

We continued to laugh about the incident with the ottoman the entire drive home. Ben had to strap the thing to the top of Tammi's Honda and I just kept picturing it flying off in a desperate attempt to get out of having to live the rest of it's ottoman life in Tammi's house. We pictured Ben passing us on the 347 with only the legs of the ottoman tied securely to the top of the Honda, the ottoman long gone as if it had said, "Fuck my legs. I'm outta here!"

The ottoman did make it to Tammi's house and I think we burned some calories laughing about it. And Bob did give Tammi a discount on the ottoman and never knew that we almost destroyed an entire model home with one simple piece of furniture....