My Bed

So. Furniture.
We bought this furniture about 2 and half years ago when we moved back from New York. A bedroom set, to be specific. A delightful sleigh bed and matching dresser in an attractive cherry finish. Dazzling.
I won't tell you where we got it, but suffice it to say it rhymes with "Smart Can". Or "Cart Tan". Or "Tart Man", for that matter.
The summer we bought it, they came up to our apartment and put it together.
"How lovely", we thought.
Then Rob sat on it and it collapsed.

When the repair guy came (yeah, we had to pay the repair guy to come, by the way), Rob started to explain to him what had happened. The guy interrupts him and says, "Oh, I know exactly what bed you have, then. This happens with all of them."
Cool. So they sold us a bed they know can't support any weight. He put these little extra support metal things on the wood slats underneath, so they could hold up. We had to pay for those too. Kind of like if you bought a house whose walls wouldn't stay up. So then you paid someone to come out and prop them up with 2x4s.

Anyways, with the exception of the fact that whatever genius put this bed together used nails that were too long, causing me to snag my clothes on the sharp edges poking out through the end of my sleigh, the bed worked fine.
And then it didn't.
The other night, we're sitting in bed.
Just sitting. Watching some TV.
And the bed collapses.
Just collapses.
Upon further inspection, the metal slats that go into the wood have actually torn the wood. From this point on, I will put the word "wood" in quotations. I'd like to have a woodnalysis done before making any further assumptions as to the bed's predominant material.
Anyways, the "wood" is officially torn, and unfixable. Right now, I'm sitting in my bed typing this. Know what's holding it up? A rubbermaid container. Let's do a cost analysis:
Amount paid for bed and dresser set: $2000
Amount paid for rubbermaid container that's actually supporting the bed: $12

"Don't worry!" I tell Rob. "We have a warranty on this bed." A LIFETIME warranty.
I look it up on my receipt, which I have so wisely saved. There it is, lifetime warranty
Oh my God, I am such a genius. I am so WISE for buying a warranty. Look at all the money I saved myself. Probably I'll get a whole new bed. Some days, Suze Orman has nothing on me.
So I call up Smart Can. It's like I can basically see the lady on the other line filing her nails. I say to her "My bed collapsed. But I have a warranty on it."
She looks up my invoice number.
"Nuh-uh", she says. Blowing on her nails. Gotta get that nail dust off.
Do you want to know what that damn warranty is for?
The finish.
I have a lifetime warranty on the finish of my bed.
The cherry finish.
Could someone tell me WHAT THE F IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE FINISH OF A BED THAT NECESSITATES A LIFETIME WARRANTY?
Because my finish is fine, people. Stunning, even. You know what's NOT fine?
MY ONE-HORSE BROKEN SLEIGH, THAT'S WHAT.
There's a damn gap between the end of my bed and my mattress big enough for my DOG TO FALL THROUGH.
Lady's like "No, there's no warranty on the bed itself. You want someone to fix that, you're going to have to pay them to come out there."
I will be DAMNED if I'm going to pay someone to come out again and fix what shouldn't be broken in the first place.
SCAM! SCAMSCAMSCAM!
I told her "Oh no, this thing's a piece of crap. I'm not paying anyone to come out."
She's all "Alright. Bye."

You know what I'm going to do? I'm gonna ruck up the damn finish, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going take a nail file to it. I'm gonna do that twice a year for the rest of damn life. Even when we've replaced the bed, I'm gonna call them over, direct them down to the basement where the bed is sitting empty, and I'm going to sit upstairs and have a glass of wine and laugh to myself. I will make you wish your lifetime was over, warranty!

"No, Laura, you know what we're going to to do when we get home? I'm going to thumb wrestle you until you bleed."

I went downtown to meet with this guy. I parked in the parking ramp. Let me just clarify that all of the parking ramps in downtown Kzoo are owned by the same company. They all take debit cards. Except, naturally, the one I parked in.
I'm on my way out after meeting with this grant guy, and I try to give the lady my debit and she's like "Oh, we don't take debit. The other ones do, but we don't."
Because that makes sense.
That's like "Oh, this McDonald's doesn't sell cheeseburgers, sorry."
There is the natural expectation, when all of the other ramps take cards, that this one will follow suit. And when it doesn't IT REALLY KIND OF MESSES UP YOUR DAY.
I'm like "um.. okay. I don't have any cash."
She says "Well, do you have any change?"
Don't you think I would have thought of that?
No lady, I don't have any change.
I owe $2.
She tells me I have to back up, turn around and go get my parking validated. So I turn around and start going back into the ramp, and I hear the lady behind me yelling "YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!"
Ya think?
As you can see, I have a chip on my shoulder as far as this lady goes.
Anyways, I go back to the office where grant guy works and, don't you know, they don't validate parking.
The nearest ATM is two blocks away. So I start walking.
I'd just like to remind you that I'm 38 weeks pregnant right now.
I get to the ATM and put my pin in, and it tells me it's the wrong pin. Then I remember that, twice in the last four months, my bank has sent me new debit cards with a note that says "there's been a security breach. we have to cancel your card." So, I don't know my pin anymore.
I try a few different things. They don't work.
Now I call my bank. They put me on hold for a decade, and then they come back on and say "you tried too many times. now we have to send you a new pin in the mail." They can ONLY send it through the mail.
Cool. I guess I'll go home and wait for that.
Fools!
I am now stuck in downtown Kzoo because I cannot come up with $2. Rob can't come bail me out because WE SOLD HIS CAR A FEW WEEKS AGO.
I really can't emphasize to you how pathetic you feel when you're stranded somewhere over $2.
Here's how I eventually get out: I remember that the store where I buy my running gear validates parking. So I go there and buy a $20 pack of running socks so that I can ask them to validate my parking. Repeat: I spend $20 to get a $2 validation.
By the time I get out, the shift has changed and someone new is in the toll booth. That lady is so lucky that her shift was over, because I'd had a brisk walk and plenty of time to come up with some choice words for her.

All About "He's Just Not That Into You"

In my defense, it was actually kind of Rob's choice. Kind of, because I refused to see Watchmen. I wasn't in the mood for scribbly face and blue man. Anyways.. we go. It was alright.
First of all, there's this part where Scarlett Johannsen says to whoever "The categories are sexy, cute, smart and funny. Which two am I? You can only pick two."
So I say to Rob, "Which two am I?"
Do you know that that boy chose 'smart' and 'funny'?
Okay, it's not brain surgery here. EVERYONE knows that, posed with this question that is clearly a trick, you need to choose one from the 'looks' category, and one from the 'personality' column. If you choose two from the looks column, it means you're vapid, and if you choose two from the personality column, it means that you're ugly. Guys, please prepare yourself for this question. And "you're all four" is not acceptable. He tried that too.
Okay, maybe I'm a bit hormonal. Come on, though. I've got like 3 weeks left, and I've been so good thus far.
Then, there's this other part in the movie where this guy I really liked cheated on his wife, and it really pissed me off. So, this morning, I made Rob spend about half an hour telling me all the reasons he's never going to cheat on me. Just so we're clear, I'm not even trying to pretend that that's sane. Give me a break. Anyways, thirty minutes later, when he's rolling his eyes and just about to kill himself, I let it go. Then I said "We should watch one of our Netflix movies tonight."
Rob says "Okay, what do we have?"
Changeling.
He gives me this look and says, "What is that about?"
So I tell him.
Then he says, "Let me get this straight. After the conversation you just put me through, you now want me to watch a movie with you where the woman's child is kidnapped and then she gets someone else's kid back?"
Then Rob went into the bedroom and got the Netflix movie, put it in its return envelope and hid it. He said I could watch it in eighteen years.

In other news, Ryan and Jen joined a bowling league and I'm completely jealous. If you want to start a Kalamazoo bowling league, please let me know. I want shirts, too.

"Laura. After the baby comes out, I'm going to drop-kick you."
Notes From Lamaze Class

1. The man sitting next to me had redface and reeked of alcohol. Like, the kind of reeking where it was hard to take a breath while faced in that direction. Had someone given me a breathalyzer, I very well may have failed. This did not give me hope for the future of the poor baby in utero.

2. His wife didn't seem to notice? Or at least she didn't act like it. But then again, I guess if you're husband was boozing prior to lamaze, you wouldn't so much bring it up in front of everyone.

3. I want you to get a ruler. I then want you to measure out ten centimeters. I want you to do this because I don't think you quite understand how big 10 cm. is. I sure as hell didn't. Think grapefruit.

4. Do you know what lamaze is? I knew it was breathing and all. But I thought it was effective breathing. Effective how, I don't know. Stupid me and my faith in constructive breathing. Please don't be fooled; lamaze is exactly this: breathing in your nose and out of your mouth while 'relaxing'. THAT'S WHAT YOU'VE GOT FOR ME, DR. LAMAZE? Really? If all you've got is in the nose and out the mouth and 'butterfly massage' (which consists of me fluttering my fingers over my stomach in circles, Winnie the Pooh style), you can just bring on the epidural, fools.

5. Rob would not let us leave early to watch Lost. Instead, he made us stay and watch a movie about a woman who did not get an epidural. So, instead of enjoying my favorite show, I had to watch someone in more pain than I can really fathom. Thank you, Rob.

6. At one point, there was a demonstration. A dad ("coach", if you will) volunteered, and the lamaze teacher 'birthed' him out of a pink turtleneck, which was supposed to replicate the 'effaced cervix'. This experience was surprisingly effective, as it replaced the non-epidural birth video as the most disturbing thing I've ever seen. Then, Rob has to raise his hand and say "Do babies usually come out with facial hair?" Again, thank you, Rob.