We Hate It At Levitz

Two things I know I hate are dealing with hardware and dealing with salesmen. You might then, with good reason, ask what the hell I was doing in a furniture store in the first place.

Well, this was last Saturday, the 18th. D and I had gone to San Francisco to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (a great show, go see it in person if at all possible), then enjoyed a late lunch at Max's and decided we didn't want to wait 2 hours to see a movie at the Metreon. On our way home, we stopped at the Levitz in San Carlos and bought a headboard.

The salespeople were friendly enough, but-- as we found out later-- totally clueless about their products. We originally went in looking for a larger dining table, and though we couldn't find any suitable sets (all the chairs were too wide), we did find a couple of nice headboards, which we'd also been seeking. We went for the larger one, which was a solid piece and seemed a bit sturdier, and arranged for delivery.

The headboard arrived this morning, and the delivery men put it in the bedroom. After they left, I moved it to the head of the bed and discovered that it didn't have the right fittings to attach to our metal bed frame. Let me back up and say that we weren't looking for a whole bed; we just wanted a headboard which we could bolt onto our existing metal bed frame. We don't want a footboard or posts or any other fancy stuff. We just want a damn headboard.

Anyway, it was back to Levitz this evening to see if we could get the proper fittings to attach the headboard. We had two problems: first, that we needed a hook-in frame for this particular headboard; and second, that the bed frame needed to be higher off the ground (12" instead of 6"). It took two salesdroids nearly half an hour to determine that they didn't actually have a bed frame which fit those criteria, despite their having assured us last week that we would have no problem putting the headboard on our existing bed frame.

Grr.

So now D's going to call their customer service office-- in New York-- and demand that they exchange our useless hunk of wood for the other headboard we'd been considering, which comes with a whole bed and no footboard. Yay. Ghod knows how long that's all going to take to sort out.

I suppose the third lesson here is that if you ever want anything unusual or special ordered, be prepared for a truckload of hassle. Salespeople aren't prepared or inclined to deal with people who have weird requests. Sure, they'll promise you the moon, but they are lying liars who lie.

So, to summarize: Hate dealing with hardware. Hate salespeople. Hate Levitz. Don't attempt special orders. Liars and lying. Spelling Bee musical good.

Good night, and good luck.