Show and Tell Friday - "The Perfect Chair"

Kelli, from "There is no place like home" is hosting her regular "Show and Tell Friday". Here is my "show and tell" item.

Yes an ordinary chair may seem kind of boring and lame to showcase - but the story behind it is what is special. A lesson in patience for me :)

I am quite excited by my chair!

I have been waiting for this particular chair to go on sale for months now. When I first saw it - I knew it was just the right chair that I needed for an empty spot in our living room. It wasn't terribly expensive as chairs go, but it was more than I wanted to spend - and besides, I generally do not like spending full price. I am a thrift store-garage sale-Craig's List-eBay kind of girl.

Almost every week or so, I'd go to the store to make sure the chair was still there and to check if it was marked down. One week it did go on sale - but it was "Buy one get one half-price". Maybe not a bad deal if I needed two - but there wasn't even room for two chairs.

Then around Thanksgiving they were on sale for about $100 (just my price!). But there was a problem, the sale only lasted for a few days - days we would be out of town - and the final day it was on sale was the day we'd arrive home from our trip. It was rainy out and we were too tired to go and get it :(

So back to the waiting game.

Well New Year's Eve day, the kids and I went back to the store. Lo and behold there were a couple of the chairs in the clearance section. On sale for $80... Now the problem was, how am I going to get this home. My dh was at work - and I kind of wanted the chair NOW since I had been waiting so long for it.

I bought the chair and thought if I couldn't somehow fit it in the car, I'd leave it at the store for dh to pick up later in the day. The chair is quite wide and no way could it fit in the door of our car.

So I went to the trunk. Usually my trunk is full of "junk"...shopping bags, large metal "basket" for storing things in...a large gym bag - you get the picture. I always like to be "prepared" in case the kids and I take an impromptu picnic or visit to the park. My preparedness paid off :)

In the trunk were two bungee cords...a large picnic blanket...2 kiddie u-shaped pillows. Exactly everything that was needed to haul the chair home.. if it fit.

I've never had to haul anything big in my trunk before, and never used bungee cords - but I was feeling adventurous! I took the junk out of the trunk and moved it to the front seat. The chair was able to lay flat on it's back with the legs poking out. I placed the 2 u-shaped pillows over the wooden legs to protect them from the lid of the trunk banging down on it, then I placed the blanket over top to keep the pillows in place and to further protect the chair.

I had seen my dh use bungee cords on the trunk before, so I fiddled around a bit - tied a knot in one a couple of times to make it shorter and took knots out of the too short one and the bungee cords ended up just the right size and tightness.

I was kind of apprehensive about driving like this - worried the pillows would go flying into the windshield of the cars behind me, causing who knows what to happen!

But Praise the Lord - it all worked out fine. I even stopped to get my self a little Slurpee fortification at Shell before heading home.

I'm thankful that Providentially I had all the right tools in my car when the chair finally went on clearance. It pays to be patient!