One aspect of operating a furniture store with my wife that's particularly exhausting and exasperating is a phenomenon known as a "floor move."
Now, if a floor move actually entailed, you know, moving a floor, I probably wouldn't mind it so much, because that sounds pretty straightforward. Sure, it sounds like a lot of work, but at least it would just involve moving a floor from Point A to Point B.
However, a "floor move" as it exists in my wife's mind, is this recurring monumental undertaking that requires massive amounts of patience, and spinal fortitude capable of enduring moving multiple pieces of heavy furniture as much as 20 times per floor move.
Basically, a floor move starts with my wife standing in the middle of the store for about ten minutes, unmoving and unblinking, until her eyes start to glaze over and then tear up. I know then, at that exact moment, the seeds of a floor move have been solidly implanted.
"We need to completely change things around," she'll say, although the wording changes slightly from floor move to floor move. For example, she may say, instead, "I hate that chair there" or "that couch needs to be moved a few inches to the right." Whatever the wording, the eventual result is a complete and total floor move, because as soon as we do something as simple as move a couch a few inches to the right, ten other pieces of furniture instantly become totally out of place. And, once we move those pieces, all the art on the walls doesn't look right, and suddenly I find myself with a tape measure and hammer, tacking pictures in place a mere 20 inches away from where they existed previously, all according to my wife's exacting instructions.
As I said, the necessity for a floor move exists entirely in my wife's mind. If it were up to me, everything would stay exactly where it all is into perpetuity. I lack the necessary mental switch that says "that dresser would look better over there." My mental dialogue simply says "that dresser would ideally hold my boxer shorts and tee shirts and is perfect right where it is and will always be perfect there."
Once a floor move is in full swing, the store basically looks like a particularly severe episode of "Hoarders." It's pure chaos every time. My wife will assure me she has no intention of moving anything on a certain wall, but within minutes that wall will be completely deconstructed and I'll be standing there, sweat pouring off my head because I will have moved the same couch 18 times, at least, and there's every expectation on my part that I'll be moving that couch 18 more times, at least, before it's all over.
To my wife's credit, gradually, glacially, incrementally, a floor move starts to show hints of progress and then, almost magically, we find ourselves standing in a store that looks completely different than it did a mere five hours earlier.
I would almost feel a deep sense of accomplishment if I didn't know, in the back of my mind, we'll be doing the same exact thing in a few short, recuperative weeks.
Posted by Ryan at May 3, 2012 09:33 AM | TrackBack
Stumble It!
