Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?

When Mom died, BJ and I got her dining room furniture, not so much because it fit into our house (it didn’t), but because of a longstanding tease.  And, well, it didn’t fit very well into our lifestyle, either.  So once a few years passed and I was able to get over the emotional attachment to a table, six chairs, and a china hutch, I gave it to my sister Ruth, who has a house fit for it.  That left us with the card table, which DID fit very well into our tiny dinette, but let’s face it:  that wasn’t a very practical solution, especially in the long run.  So we decided to shoot the wad and get the table and chairs we wanted.

That, as it turns out, was harder than it should have been.

I found the PERFECT chairs last summer, but before I could get back to the store to buy them, I fell out of a tree and broke my pelvis in four places.  Good-bye four months.  Then in November, BJ had the shoulder surgery.  Good-bye four more months.  Neither of us was working; money was super tight, and, well, we just never did get back to that furniture store.

We both still really wanted those chairs, though.  Craftsman styling, solid oak construction, high arrow backs, padded leather seats.  Perfectly designed to hug the lumbar.  Just the right size.   So when BJ’s retirement check came this July, we decided to finish what we had started last year.  That’s when God started laughing.

Buying the table was no big deal.  The card table we’ve been using is 38 inches square, and we found a solid oak two-tone table with two drop leaf sides that is 42 inches square.  Perfect.

The chairs, however, were discontinued in April.  Oh, NO!!!

The clerk told me they had two chairs left in the stock room, but not four.  Crestfallen, BJ and I set out to find our beloved chairs somewhere else.  It was as if some horrible alliance was conspiring against us.  We went to I-don’t-know-how-many stores, tried other chairs, none of which we liked, made innumerable phone calls, went online — all to no avail.  The chairs simply were no longer available, and all alternatives were falling well short.

Finally, last weekend, BJ suggested we go back to the original store and buy the two chairs they had tucked away in the stock room.  We figured that way, at least we could sit at our new table so long as company wasn’t an issue, and it would be easier to find a furniture store with two chairs than tracking down one with four.  So I called to make sure they were still there, and off we went.

The clerk who had waited on us initially (and who was still upset over sending us away and losing the sale in the first place) had been talking to the other guy I dealt with on the phone.  She had not forgotten us, and when he told her that he had just sold two of those Prairie View chairs, only to see us walk in, she was really upset.  She knew we had come back for the two chairs, and they sold them just an hour ago?!

Once we explained that we were the hour-ago customers, she felt better, but the story doesn’t end there.

Turns out the inventory computer, which had showed two chairs still in stock, has been — shall we say — slightly less than accurate lately, so Tommy (the phone guy) had physically walked to the stock room to be sure they were still there before he had us drive all the way to the store.  As BJ and I were chatting with Laura (the original sales person), Tommy overheard that we still had two more chairs to track down.  At that moment, he became my hero.

The chairs come unassembled, two to a box, direct from the factory.  Yep, you guessed it:  The stock room held two BOXES, not just two chairs, and Tommy had noted the discrepancy.  So, grinning from ear to ear, BJ and I snatched up the remaining box, went home, put our four new chairs together, and took turns sitting down on each of them.

Life is good.