The great sofa-shopping experiment

January 13, 2004

When a man moves out on his own for the first time, he tends to be, well, broke, lacking the financial means to buy decent furniture. Therefore, he pieces together furniture from a variety of sources -- hand-me-downs from relatives and friends, garage sales, bargain buys, etc. The resulting decor is a mish-mash of cheap and ugly furniture, giving the place a look euphemistically described as "bachelor pad."

The man will continue to live in this environment until one of three things happens: a woman comes along to presumably force said man to at least pretend he has taste; he gets enough money to buy decent furniture and, because of a bout with either homosexuality or metrosexuality, he develops a sense of taste; or he dies.

Well, I don't see me getting myself into a government-sanctioned heterosexual life-partnership anytime soon, and I don't have any plans of dying anytime soon, either, so that puts me somewhere in the middle category. All I know is that I have been growing rather sick of my furniture lately -- most of which was bought at discount stores with names ending in "ko" or "co." The stuff is made up largely of particle board and came with "some assembly required." Enough of this; I have decided that I want some adult, matching furniture.

That leaves the money part. Being a journalist with student loans the size of some countries' gross domestic products, I don't exactly have enough income to go on festive furniture shopping sprees. But I do have enough to get a piece here and there without going into debt, so I am taking my furniture revamp one piece of a time. All observers agree: It's time to replace the futon first.

This futon was, at one point, the piece de resistance of my furniture collection. I spent, by far, more money on it than on any other piece of furniture in my early days -- I may have even spent triple digits on it -- and, at first, it served its purpose. It was a metal-frame contraption with a serviceably comfortable mattress. But over the years, the mattress has lost its buoyancy, and the metal frame has sagged somewhat; as a result, sitting on it feels a bit like sitting on a cattle guard.

Therefore, I found myself in the market for a sofa. And, unwittingly, I found myself in the middle of a sociological experiment.

Last weekend, I decided to head to a few stores in search of the perfect sofa. I wandered out the door without giving much thought to my appearance -- specifically, I had stubble on my face from several days without shaving. (I have sensitive skin, and therefore, I don't shave every day.) I was also dressed casually -- T-shirt and jeans with tennis shoes. While I didn't like a total slob, a murderer, or a serial poodle molester -- I was clean and groomed except for the stubble -- let's just say I didn't look like a player in the world of high society.

At about the third store, I noticed that everywhere I went, salespeople automatically made assumptions that I didn't exactly have oodles of cash. While I was treated politely everywhere I went -- heck, a sale's a sale, and almost anyone can get enough credit to at least make payments on a cheaper piece of furniture -- the salespeople quickly steered me to the cheaper pieces of furniture. And whenever I expressed interest in a piece, they quickly pointed out low-end financing options.

One salesman, who went by the moniker -- I swear this is true -- Big Al, was the worst offender. (His card says, really, "Big Al." Ironically, he wasn't big at all; he was actually very average in size.) He had all the tacky, high-pressure sales tactics down pat, and when a black leather sofa on sale caught my eye, he said, his hand on my shoulder as if I were one of his closest buds: "You know, Jimmy, you can lock in that sale price by putting just 10 percent down."

I informed him having the money was not an issue. He seemed almost surprised. "Oh," he said.

Despite his sleazy sales tactics, I ended up buying the sofa from Big Al, because it was a great deal. And black leather goes well with almost anything. It'll match my particle board bachelor-pad furniture nicely.

Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan in exile in Arizona who is grateful his sofa did not come "some assembly required." His column appears here Tuesdays, and a column archive may be viewed at www.jimmyboegle.com.

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