SANITY FAIR: (MODERATELY) HAPPY (COUCH) ENDINGS

Thank you bloggy friends for all the great words of support and advice on what became The Couch Hunt From H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. I'm long delinquent in responding. Why? Because I have spent all of my waking hours on the Couch Hunt. And they have to be waking hours, because I do not have a couch on which to comfortably repose.

To summarize where we last left off, a couch I had ordered did not fit (or would not be fit, sans eager movers) into my home. Z Gallerie, purveyors of said couch, informed me of four things:

1) I could choose an exchange on their website.

2) I could have a full refund.

3) I could have a newer model of the couch that included removable feet, if I were willing to wait 8 weeks.

4) I could take the time I needed to make up my mind.

I considered an exchange for this lovely green couch - alas, also too large (or not!
Who knows if the dimensions are right!)

Funnily, not ONE of those things turned out to be true! The day after Mission: Couch Delivery failed, I left on a trip. During the time I was gone, I spoke with Z Gallerie several times, looked at various other couch options with them via phone, and was told to wait until I got back from my trip to make such a "big decision."

As it turned out, I didn't have that much of a big decision to make - Z Gallerie had made it for me. I decided I probably wanted a refund, and when I called the consultant I was working with to discuss it, she put me on hold. And came back with new information.

You know when your blood rushes really fast? And it sounds really loud in your ears? And you hear people say things to you like: You will not be getting a refund. You will not be getting an exchange. The couch is not available, new or old, with removable feet. And if you "refuse" the couch, it will be returned for a 50% restocking fee + delivery. Or, we can just send it to your building and leave it in the lobby for you to decide what to do with.

You know that feeling? When I could speak again, I requested to direct that speech toward a supervisor, with whom I then began the Viscous Cycle of Admitting Denial Conversation. Yes, all of those things I was told were not true. But the other things I was just told were true. Yes, they took full responsibility for them. No, they would not take any ACTUAL responsibility for them. I was finally offered a 30% restocking fee + delivery fee...

Alas, company culpability. In vain I pleaded my case - that the measurements they gave me for the couch were wrong and that this record-setting dispersal of misinformation included the other previously mentioned falsehoods. Nothing swayed them, not even the startling news that the couch - my couch - the couch that I apparently owned in a very irrevocable way - was now in parts unknown.

WHAT?!?!?

Apparently, if you leave a couch sitting around a delivery company's warehouse for a week, they get really bored, and decide to send it back where it came from, and they don't necessarily feel the need to divulge that whim to, say, the person who owns the couch, or (and this is a crazy idea), the company who manufactured it. It was gone.

But Patience, she is still a virtue. For 47 minutes, I stuck to my guns, puny guns, seeing as they had my money, and somewhere, my couch, but stick I did. We resolved the situation thusly:

Me: "What does your computer say is the height of the couch?"

Z Gallerie "32 inches."

Me: "Go to your website. What does the web page say is the height of the couch?"

Z Gallerie: "31 inches."

And so herein lies the lesson: your word against their word will get you nowhere. Their computer against their other computer will get you everywhere. Or, at least, a refund.

For the record: