One of my neighbors asked a favor. They know I work from home and asked that I let into their apartment delivery people with a new sofa for them. Basically being unable to come up with an excuse why I couldn't do so, I said yes. I asked them to let the delivery people have my number so I know when they get here and they let me know the timeframe.
So the delivery takes place. The sofa isn't just a sofa, it's a sectional monster that would look bulky in, say, the departure lounge of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX, Grand Central Station, or perhaps Utah, never mind a medium-sized apartment. The delivery people can't get it into the lobby- it won't fit into the elevator and can't be manoevred up the one stair from the lobby.
After much hazzerei the delivery guys manage to cart this mauve chenille dinosaur down the alley and around to the back, and without smashing any light fixtures or having coronaries deposit it and the ottoman (itself almost the size of a Honda) in the living room. My neighbor hadn't really made room for the behemoth so it was more in the middle of the room than against the walls, but I wasn't going to fool with his stuff and neither were the now-sweating people from Bob's House of Oversized Furnishings.
I certainly wasn't going to tip them (since I wasn't left any money to do so, and I wasn't even invited to the party that the new furnishings were being premiered at) but I did give them some bottled water I had in the icebox. It's only fair and only human.
Come this evening I get an email from the neighbor. Not "thanks for doing this, I owe you a drink." Not "thanks for doing this, please come to the party." No, I get "Omg they made the couch wrong! The L shape is on the wrong side!! :("
My response? "Oh dear. I guess you should have been here after all." After all, if you choose to have a sectional that could be used as an emergency landing strip by small aircraft wedged into your apartment, your sanity is the thing I'm going to be questioning first, not your decorating abilities..
Photo: dailymail.co.uk
