Dear World: I Am in a Furniture Store and It Hurts

I seriously thought America would be better than this

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

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Went into a furniture store and immediately wanted to taze myself.

I thought to myself, “Self, you are in America now—there’s no way the sales associates are going to be bloodthirsty ball badgers.”

Wrong answer.

One time in Panama I remember being followed around a store, up and down each aisle, just buying tampons. In Costa Rica it’s far less aggressive, except for those freakshows at Bath & Body Works. Why are all the employees at Bath & Body Works having a seizure??? Listen guys, I know how it works. I pick out a candle, and then I walk over there and buy it. It ain’t that complicated. And yet, there are still 32 employees named Sam trying to spritz me with their hottest new scent of Brown Banana Yogurt Farts.

Alas, I was excited at the prospect of maybe finally being able to enter a Raymour & Flanigan or some other embarrassing American box chain store to actually sit on the sofas. The last sofa I bought, I ordered online, and that was a big mistake, because it’s NOT COMFORTABLE AT ALL.

So off I went, parking the sweet Jeep Gladiator in their sweet oversized parking lot and waltzing into this huge beige sea of recliners, thinking I’m about to experience the joy of talking to no one. This. Is. America, after all—the place where I can rent a 12,000-pound excavator with literally zero questions asked. Why would anyone ask me any questions about this?

Well they chased me around that store like a pack of rabid priests. At one point, the store manager even approached and wanted to know if there was anything “he could do.”

“I dunno, you got a bottle of wine?” I asked.

He didn’t know what to say. I swam delicious laps in his awkwardness, sinister furniture shopper that I am.

“We used to give out wine,” he lied stammered. “But it kept getting spilt on the furniture, so we had to do away with it.”

I didn’t believe him for a second, but, I thought fine, get away from me. I want to sit on this $3,000 polyester rag in peace.

Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to make a beeline for the nearest exit. That is when a sales associated named Jay made a beeline for me. “Here’s my card, if I can help you with anything!”

I walked right into that parking lot and tore it up into little tiny pieces, just to give myself a thrill. Later that night, I started fantasizing about an all-new kind of furniture store that just did away with people all together. Our commercial would go something like this:

Are you tired of shopping for furniture and being harassed by middle-aged, sexually-frustrated employees? Come to Revolt Furniture—we don’t even have employees!

And, wouldn’t that be the best? A store with no people inside of it? Now that’s my idea of a good customer experience. Please get me a self-checkout lane for this six-drawer dresser I’m going to have to buy to replace the one that fell on my big, fat foot.

Oh, I didn’t tell you about that yet, did I?

A DRESSER FELL ON MY BIG, FAT FOOT.

That’s right! Fell right over and smashed me in the hoof. And, do you know why?

Because I’m stubborn.

You see, there’s this bedroom in the creepy farmhouse. It’s a big room. I’m turning it into a guest room. Except there’s one little problem: the floor is bouncy. And by “bouncy,” what I mean is “is this a trampoline?” and “shouldn’t somebody do something about this?” and “where are all the adults?” and also “frick.”

This floor is so bouncy, the chandelier in the room below it actually shakes. Walking across it feels like a game of Russian roulette.

I’m having a guy come and install a support beam. He calls it an “LVL.” Apparently this stands for “laminated veneer lumber.” The word “laminate” makes me think of my best friend’s kitchen countertop from 1994.

But, in the meantime, do you know what a saggy, bouncy, death trap of a floor does? It droops. The middle is like a bowl. And that means that the moment I haul a dresser into that room???

a) None of the drawers stay closed.
b) My granny panties are exposed to the world.
c) I have to tape the drawers shut with duct tape.
d) And, of course, one day the dresser launches toward me and just topples to the floor.

(Why, you ask, am I using the guest room to store MY clothes? Because the dresser looked better there, obviously. This is why I am a stubborn mule.)

Not one to be deterred, I gave it a good smack and then stood it the fuck back up. Just out of spite, I’ve decided I’m going to store marbles in there now. Now when it falls, a hundred tiny little glass balls will also skate all over the floor, and it will be the absolute worst day, and this is how I punish myself.

So, the farmhouse has been fun.

Tomorrow I’ve got an old farmer coming to tear down my barn. Now that’s something I want to see fall, though preferably not on my foot. Not that I don’t love an old barn as much as the next freak who buys an old farmhouse in the middle of rural America, but this one’s just a skeleton anymore. There was once a big, big flood and the big waters rushed down the big, big dirt road and then hit my big, big old barn and now all of the floors are caved in and probably bats live in there or something. I just keep picturing some little kid running after a red balloon and falling in and that will hurt much more than a dresser.

Once he is done tearing down my barn, he’s going to rip out my concrete wall from 1946. The concrete wall from 1946 sits next to my concrete driveway from 1946. Both are very ugly. But, I know they’re from 1946 because it says so in the concrete, however I am not compelled to keep it around.

You know what else is wild?

I only own the top of the land. This is a thing in this part of rural America: because of all the natural gas fracking, they’ve divided the layers of land up like a cake. You can either own the top, or you can own underneath, or you can own both.

Most people who own both never sell the sub-surface rights. Never, ever, ever. They can continue collecting gas royalties for the rest of their lives. You had to be here when it started, though, that’s the catch: that’s why all the farmers around here are rich. (At one point, three-hundred acres netted one local farmer I know $970,000 a year in royalties.)

So now buying real estate around here is weird: everyone wants to know which rights you own. Every time I tell somebody I own my measley five acres of land, I have to be embarrassed about the fact that I do not, in fact, own the gas rights to my land. There’s always this little sad pause in the conversation. It’s like admitting to having a small wang. People feel sorry for you.

The other day I got a Zillow notification that stopped my heart: the 1.22 acre lot in town where our 1978 trailer once sat—the old gold and white tin one I grew up in with my mom—is up for sale. They’re asking $90K for the land. Ninety thousand dollars is a lot of money for an acre around here, especially without any rights. There’s a gorgeous eleven-acre field I have my eye on, out here near my farmhouse: they’re asking $75,000 (no rights, of course).

But, wow, what nostalgia will make you do. Or at least consider.

I drove by three times. Studied the grass, the trees, the crick behind it. Wondered what I’d do with it. Thought about building a big, fuck-you house in its place. Wouldn’t that make for an interesting plot twist?

Thought about just putting a hammock there. Thought about building tiny homes there. Thought about how they are literally like modern trailers, only cuter.

And then I remember that I already bought property here. That I finally have the two-story home I always wanted. That I finally have a staircase. That I finally have a scary garage, and a scary basement, and a scary attic, and a scary pond. That I don’t need to sneak out the back door anymore, mortified by where I live. (Unless you ask me about my gas rights.)

It is sweet how so much of what we do is because we are sentimental little kid monsters, pretending to be adults. Which reminds me: I have a bouncy floor to fix. And a barn to demo. And a dresser to battle. And a sofa to buy.

And, I will cherish every dollar spent, because for me none of these are frivolous expenses: they’re tiny little treasures I’m collecting like stamps, placing them in the glass case that is my memory, forever reminding me of how far I’ve come.

And how far I will stay away from a Raymour & Flanigan, so help me god.