Kitchen table politics

Out with the old. . .

It was a big day at the markets today, furniture markets that is. For 10 years, Stan and Kathleen have wanted a non-white kitchen table and chairs. The white set came to Shakopee from the white kitchen in Eden Prairie. Durable as hell but never looked right in the darker-woods Shakopee kitchen. We just never got around to doing anything about it.
Last night we delivered the white kitchen set to Danny Martin's retro apartment to complete his new Shakopee bachelor pad (above). It looked just great on the white tile with his white appliances.
But now we were left with no kitchen set of our own. We had turned up nothing suitable at Schneiderman's, HOM, Gabberts and Room & Board. Diligent internet searches (would you really buy furniture sight unseen?) and Craigslist hunts were fruitless.
This morning at 6 a.m., pajama-ed Stan glimpsed a tv ad for some outfit called "Furniture &Things," googled it, printed out their 10 percent off ad, and before you could say "coffee to go" we were in the Rendezvous heading north across the Mississippi to Coon Rapids.
In with the new. . .

About 40 miles upstream we discovered a remarkably well-stocked middle-class furniture house with a grouping of excellent wooden candidates. We told the portly gentleman that we had journeyed from the southwest, seeking a counter-height table and chairs, rectangle, no leaf, 48x36, and that it didn't have to last forever, like our round white one did. He said fine, he wasn't on commission, and soon one turned up on his computer --- it was $179, when you included our homemade coupon. With four chairs it came to about $550. If we picked it up ourselves at his Anoka warehouse, we could save another $100. (They REALLY didn't want to drive it out to Shakopee, we figured)
We pulled the trigger. By 2 p.m. we were home from our 100-mile adventure, had the table unloaded, assembled and leg bottoms padded, and were enjoying our first submarine sandwich on it.

Oh yes. . .

While we were at Furniture & Things we saw the cutest little matching marble-top thing for $500, bringing our total bill to $1000 and change. We careful shoppers do have our uncontrollable impulses, you know, and we think this is darn cute. Do you?