So last week I went to World Market and saw that there was an outdoor sale. Basically it's 20% off for any outdoor furniture and other accessories. Well actually I went because I saw this sale online and printed out the coupon hoping that the Valencia set that I had pinned a month ago finally arrived in the stores. And it did!
Thankfully, he agreed so I went home, picked him up and went back to the store. Thankfully WM is only 5 mins away from home. And...he liked it! I promise this doesn't always happen. Sometimes I'd be head over heels in love with something and he'd pass by and give it a "meh". Or he would usually find some quality deficiency or other things only reasonable and objective people would see. Annoying. :)
Anyway, this time he liked it, too! Yay! So we decided to buy it. So the stock room guy grabbed us a bench, a coffee table and two chairs. The cashier rang everything up and it was only $375. Huh? I was so puzzled. I was sure the set was supposed to be $520 at the end. And then I realized that they had grabbed the "dining" bench and chairs instead of the "occasional" bench and chairs.
Ugh. So the guy went back to the stock room and found out that they do have the occasional bench but no more occasional chairs. Insert super sad face here. So we decided to just buy the coffee table and bench first. The manager took down my name so they can call me as soon as they received the chairs. So this was last Tuesday.
On Wednesday, I called another WM store to ask if they have any of the occasional chairs in stock. Nope. None of them had any in stock except for the store in Marin, which is 2 hours away. *sigh. But then they told me that 4 chairs should be arriving at the Mountain View store. Elated, I called the MV store. The lady very politely told me that if the manager already got my name they would call me when the chairs arrive.
Thursday night was the beginning of our ESSC so I decided that I would not think about this anymore. It was my time to focus on my spiritual self and not about two occasional chairs. And so I did. I had decided that worst comes to worst I would just order the chairs online Sunday night after I come back from church since the sale ends on Sunday. It's just an extra $30 for shipping. I would not be petty with God.
So ESSC happened and really thank God we had 6 baptisms! (If I ever gather my thoughts I'll post about this.) It also just so happened that an elderly sister passed away last week and so her memorial service was scheduled for Sunday afternoon after SC is over. So basically David and I didn't get home until past 9pm on Sunday because of cleanup and such. No complaints though, we both had many reflections about SC and realized again how wonderful it is to have good coworkers in Christ. Having good coworkers can really turn something bitter and difficult into something joyful.
Anyway, so we got home past 9 and after showering I remembered that I should order the chairs. So I went online and guess what? The chair can't be found anywhere on the site! At first I thought I was too tired and missed it or something, but I slowly realized that it just was not there. The bench was there, the coffee table was there. But no chair. It wasn't even out of stock. It just wasn't there at all.
That was when I told myself to be ready to return the coffee table and bench we had gotten. Well, another task for another day. So I went to bed.
Two days later (Tuesday), I decided to call Mountain View WM to ask if they had received those 4 chairs that were coming in. To my surprise the guy told me that they had 1 of those chairs in stock. So strange. I didn't miss any calls. Did they forget to call me? At the end of the call, I decided to just go into the store to grab that one chair and try my luck in other stores.
When I got there, the guy kindly brought out the last chair in stock and even called other stores to see if they have any in stock. The manager was also there -- actually the same one I left my name with! She recognized me and kept apologizing to me saying that they usually always call when people leave their names and she didn't know what happened.
Then the guy got off the phone and said the Stevens Creek store is willing to sell me their store sample. When the manager heard this, she says if they're willing to sell their store sample then so is she! So that's how I ended up getting the two occasional chairs! At the end, they even sold me the chairs for 20% off even though the sale already ended! I was so surprised after the chairs were loaded into the car that everything turned out this way. :) Yay. Thank God.