From Here to Eternity: My wife’s quest to find the perfect rug

Four rugs sit outside our front door ready for the delivery guy to be the cog in the wheel of the returns process. That wheel spins kind of fast around here, and if not fast, at least often.

Joy is the UPS truck driver’s name. She’s very cheerful. She’s lucked out this morning for 3 of these rugs are to be strapped together and shipped out all at once. It’s a hefty load. Which FedEx driver comes by I know will be the one who drew today’s short straw. They by now know about us, too. It’d be best if these drivers could drop off, wait around 15 minutes while we unroll the carpet, glance at it for about a second or two, shake our heads, roll it back up and have them take it away.

Except it doesn’t actually turn out that way. The rug to be replaced is under Andre the Giant, my name for our coffee table. It’s about 4x5 feet and is made of lead, or might as well be. To get to the rug, we have to move that, and the two pieces to the sectional couch. Meanwhile, the new rug is in a holding pattern. As you can imagine, there’s not a lot of space for everything.

So, only when the old rug is out, the new rug is down, the coffee table and the sectional couch is back in place, only then is when Marsha goes, “Nope.” And we do the whole thing over again.

That’s if I’m lucky. Other times, we take the replaced rug and try it out someplace else in the house. Depending on where it goes, that could require moving another lead-weight glass coffee table and some recliners, or our long dining table, which isn’t quite like lead but the six chairs are.

As it is, we have so many return labels laying around and we sometimes attach the wrong label to a rug or take it to UPS when it should have gone to FedEx. Them picking it up for us now has been a relief. But more about that later.

Turns out, we need more packing tape before all that happens. I asked Marsha to run out to Ace and pick up another roll.

“I’m not going there to pick up just one,” she said. “What are you, nuts? We need about 12!”

Marsha lost the race against time. Jerry, the FedEx guy who drew the short straw, showed up just now and Marsha isn’t back.

“That’s OK. I can send somebody else to pick these up later,” he said with a big grin.

There was just now a knock on the door. Another rug, a little baby one. It was brought by our mailman. It’s the honest truth. Our house sits at an intersection. I swear the FedEx truck and the mail truck must have passed each other in front of our house. They probably even waved.

The three-rug combo presented a different sort of problem for us. Marsha was convinced she never even ordered them. She was on the phone with Amazon and Rugs.com for much of yesterday, just as she has countless other days. The conversation was like listening to a routine by Newhart or by Bob and Ray. But it was true. Marsha hadn’t hit the button on her laptop that sends the rugs in her cart on their way to our front door. We’ve had about 60 rugs delivered so far and given Marsha’s, addiction, I mean rug-purchase history, we could see why an online rug-order outfit might jump the gun. We don’t understand how, though.

The agents on the phone eventually relented. There was a team of them working on this before we were done. Marsha wore them out and they gave in. She cut a deal where not only did we not have to pay for the return, but the FedEx driver, would pick them up for us. Maybe it’ll be driver Jerry.

These rug folks are clever, though. We bought rugs that were 5 feet by 7 feet, and 6x9. If the rug returned extends 7 feet, we have to pay for shipping, and the rugs have all arrived rolled up lengthwise. The return costs 200 smackers! More than we paid for them. I imagine this costly return amount gets customers to decide to keep a rug they are lukewarm about. However, we’ve been around this issue enough to know better. We avoid the shipping charge by rolling it up widthwise. Or, like Marsha did, act old and wear them out.

Marsha had her weekly art class today. During a lull she piped up with this startler, “Do any of you buy rugs online?”

“Who would ever do that!”

“Well, let me tell you.” and the next thing they knew the hour had passed and they were packing up their gear.

It’s not that Marsha is being difficult. She claims in her defense of the 60 orders and returns that the rugs brought to our door haven’t matched the appearance of the ones she ordered. She also had cataract surgery that did not go so well.

In the wee hours of Valentine’s Day I heard her talk in her sleep. In her dream she was on the phone closing a deal on a rug. The rug was 5x8. She was sure it was 5x8. Then she said she thought she was sure it was 5x8. I could tell she was on the phone because she talks the loudest when she’s on the phone, evidently even in her dreams.

Anyway in her defense, we haven’t sent them all back. Two made the cut and we, I mean, Marsha has decided they can stay. For now. She’s promised that she’s finally finished. She’s done with the rugs. Although she still has 30 days.

Meantime? She’s shopping for a couch.