Not exactly an ad for Crate and Barrel

Today I went shopping for an armoire. I do not need an armoire. As a point of fact, I do not like armoires. I do not approve of the whole idea of using a piece of bedroom furniture in the living room and hiding your TV in it. They’re too big and they’re not hiding anything. It’s like, you’ve gone from a 27-inch TV to a 72-by 72-inch-everybody-knows-it’s-in-there. Let’s stop kidding ourselves! But that’s what I was doing. Looking for an armoire. I suddenly realized that I need one. Desperately. To hide my TV in.

I had to go to the post office to send out a baby gift to my brother, and as soon as I finished there, I started driving. I tried every store where I could get it and take it home with me immediately, today! Because I can’t wait for delivery. At the same time, I don’t want anything that looks like pressed wood. I’m depressed enough as it is. Why else would I be shopping for unnecessary furniture?

So Target was out. But I tried World Market. And Pier One. And Crate and Barrel, where they had lots of fake antique stuff with long descriptions, as if to justify the steep prices. I noticed that some word was used a lot in those descriptions. Rustic? Can’t remember now, but it made me sneer.

And all the huge fake antique mirrors. Catching views of my misfit self. Tinted glasses, faded jeans, wrinkled shirt, sweaty bare feet in nubuck clogs, hair too long to be short and too short to be long and uncombed and untinted or highlighted like everyone else at Crate & Barrel, with their wedding registry giggles and happy, normal lives. You say no one’s life is normal and happy but I’m telling you, these people were smiling. And not just because they were coming up to another mirror and wanted to try again. Like I was.

The first time I was unprepared, and the deep furrows in my face stunned me. I looked like Al Pacino in a Woolrich shirt! A slight smile improved things, and standing up taller. Not looking directly at my face was also a help. I remembered that I hadn’t had a bath today either, and hated the bride for her squeaky clean shine. What’s wrong with me? Don’t I have the sand? Can I get the sand? Is the sand returnable?

Everything in its place except me, wandering fitfully through the place wondering what last piece of furniture I could rearrange to make myself finally fit. If I break down and go to Ethan Allen, will they let me crawl into the armoires for size?