THE DRESSER

When we first got married, I was really into the whole "we're newly married college students so we shouldn't think we're entitled and buy a bunch of nice things because we're supposed to be poor and destitute right now" thing so I bought some cardboard boxes and built a multi-level storage cubby contraption with duct tape in lieu of buying a dresser. It was like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, only no one wanted to take pictures with it or keep it around for posterity. And by no one, I mean my husband. 

I thought it worked just fine--recall my crusade of imposed destitution--but a week of its presence in the corner of the room prompted him to begin looking at online classifieds for something that more closely resembled a dresser and less like something you'd find under a bridge. And before long he found one. But in his desperation to replace my gimpy shelves, he settled for what came to be known as one of the worst purchases we've ever made--right behind that time we said "Hey, let's eat at Chuckarama!" and that other time we bought a bunch of plants because they were only two dollars each and they all died within a week. 

Sorry plants. 

Yes, it could hold our clothes, but the woman we bought it from had sloppily painted it red, white, and blue, and the bottom drawer was missing its runners. Yet in his desperation to replace the cardboard godzilla terrorizing our room, he couldn't see past the dresser's obvious problems and horrible paint job and found himself sticking a wad of cash into that woman's hand and taking it home with him. Within a couple months, we realized our mistake when the bottom drawer fell completely apart, and for nearly two years I would walk into our room, look at it, and say things like "Maybe if I got some paint I could make this look less gross," or "Maybe we could try reattaching the bottom drawer for the tenth time and see if that works," or "This is the worst corner in our house and I hate it." And recently, we threw that dresser off our front porch and watched it explode. 

And we decided we would be more careful in selecting a new dresser this time around. 

At first, we thought just buying a cheap, build-it-yourself contraption on Amazon would be our best bet. Anything actually made of wood usually costs hundreds of dollars because apparently there are no trees anymore and I have a hard time spending $20 on pretty much anything--even if it was a possible antidote to an illness that was rapidly sucking my life away--so that wasn't happening. But I kept looking at classifieds online because maybe, just maybe through all of the gross things people try to sell I'd find something nice and not made out of particle board for less than one of those flimsy things would cost. But, we decided we wouldn't rush into things. We wouldn't buy something horrendous again out of necessity. We would just have to live with piles of clothes on the ground until something the right color, right size, and right price popped up. Or until we turned into primitive, bloodthirsty beasts due to the disorganization of our home. It can happen. 

But luckily, while checking the classifieds last Saturday on a whim, I saw an ad titled "1940s antique wood dresser" accompanied by a photo of a gorgeous, dark, refinished dresser that had tiny little wheels on the bottom of its legs. Tiny wheels. It not only was way cheaper than buying a nasty particle board dresser, it stole my heart. Did I mention it had tiny wheels? There was no denying this love, and so, preparing to make the journey 30 miles away to bring this beauty home, I measured the backseat of our car, assumed it would fit, and off we drove.

When we pulled up to the seller's house, a tiny Filipino woman walked out the door to show us the dresser sitting in front of her garage and take our money. She was very sweet and very proud of this dresser that had been in her family for so many decades and been taken care of well. We assured her we'd do the same. After we gave her the cash and she asked if my eyebrows were real, she thanked us and went back into the house as we picked it up to slip it into the backseat.

Only, it wouldn't fit. 

For the next twenty minutes, we tried every way we could think of to get it into the backseat. We took out the drawers. Went legs first. Tried pushing it through the passenger side. At some point the woman came back out with her equally adorable granddaughter and watched as we struggled to figure out how exactly we were going to get this thing down to our apartment. 

"You see her eyebrows? Aren't they beautiful? They're REAL," she said to her granddaughter as I smiled awkwardly while trying to shove this woman's priceless dresser into the back of our car and growing worried at the appearance of my husband's angry sweat (which happens any time he is exerting himself physically and whatever he is trying to do isn't working).

The woman then took charge of the situation and told us to try it a certain way she thought would work, and within two seconds of trying to squeeze it in, she gave up and said "It's not going to fit. You'll have to put it in your trunk." We looked at each other, knowing it wouldn't fit in there either and said "Okay! Thank you!," eager to drive away in shame. Hoisting it up into the trunk, it was snug, but still stuck two feet out. And with that, I navigated us to the nearest Wal-Mart as my husband drove like an old woman for the first and what I believe will be the last time in his life.

For a reason I don't understand, he parked us way out in the boonies of the parking lot that are normally reserved for RVs and cars that stopped working two years ago. In this particular parking lot, this area was home to a huge truck covered in mud that may or may not have had a confederate flag on the back of it. It was that kind of truck. Oh, and our car. We were there too.

Leaving to go inside the store to find bungee cords to strap the dresser in, he told me to stay there to keep an eye on the dresser and maybe "try to find a way to put it in the back seat again." Pssh. LIKE THAT WAS HAPPENING. But for some reason, after he left, I got out and tried to put the dresser in the back again. I did this mostly because I thought being outside was the best way to make sure no one came to steal the dresser (which in my mind is a very plausible thing to have happen, especially at Wal-Mart). After putting it back in the trunk and getting back into the car, I started trying to find a way we could get home without going on the freeway. Going 80 mph with this thing in the back of the car just didn't seem like the best idea. Luckily, I found a very convoluted, out-of-the-way route right before MY PHONE DIED. 

Immediately my thoughts were SOMEONE IS GOING TO COME STEAL THE DRESSER AND TAKE ME WITH IT OR KILL ME AND NO ONE IS GOING TO KNOW AND I DON'T WANT IT ALL TO END AT WALMART.

Sitting in terror for what felt like a half hour and could have been (BECAUSE HOW WAS I TO KNOW BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE THE TIME) I looked toward the front of the store and finally saw him walking out of the establishment with a plastic bag and my reaction was not unlike that of little children when their dads come home from the army and surprise them at school, or Dory's parents in Finding Dory when they...find Dory.

As soon as he got in the car, though, we realized that the bungee cords were bound into the packaging with other thick plastic cords, because this apparently makes sense to those who manufacture the cords that stupid young people need in dire furniture moving situations. Looking around for something he could use, my husband impulsively grabbed his house key and started sawing back and forth on the plastic binding, and in his vigorous desperation CUT HIS HAND OPEN. AND THERE WAS BLOOD. Switching simultaneously into survival mode and pretend-mother-of-six mode, I instinctively opened the glove box and shoved all of the napkins I hoard from bags of fast food (precisely for moments like this, even when my husband makes fun of me for it) into his hands while he successfully finished cutting the bungee cords free. (If you ever have a nosebleed or uncontrollable projectile vomit or any other type of mess that could use napkins, let me know. I have a lot of napkins.)

Getting out of the car and lovingly strapping our dresser in with the bungee cords, my husband got back into the car with his bloody hand, looked at me like he was Indiana Jones about to risk his life to get the Holy Grail through all kinds of danger, and said "Did you find a route home?" 

Why yes. Yes I did, Indy. 

Luckily I have a slightly photographic memory--I would compare it to a disposable camera that wound up in the laundry a couple times--so I was able to remember the weird side-roads we needed to take to get home without using much of my husband's phone that was also near death and using the majority of the rest of its battery life to write its will. 

And we got home. 

And we didn't die. 

And the dresser wasn't ruined. (We could care less about our car.)

But no, the story isn't over yet. 

Later that night, when the dresser was in our house and we were folding the clothes that had been thrown under the bed and putting them into the dresser, my husband suddenly got very quiet. 

And then the words "Camryn, there's a spider behind you," were said in a measured manner, words that to me are equivalent to "The house is burning down!" "The ship is sinking!" and "A giant fireball is hurtling through space and will strike the earth in 30 seconds!", and I jumped up, turned around and saw one of the biggest spiders I've ever seen climbing on the bed skirt that was right behind me when I was sitting. 

And with that, I had had enough. And I ran away and hid on the counter in the kitchen while the spider went the way of my phone, yet never to be recharged again. 

Oh, and we love the dresser. It's been great.