The Migration Ends...With a Couch

I had abandoned my sofa at my last apartment in NJ. I, along with everyone helping me move, decided it was best to just leave it on the second floor walk up as it was an ancient, long, bulky, HEAVY, pull out couch covered in hot, scratchy tweed. As a result, I was without a place to lounge at my newest, seaside cottage.

I had asked around about where I could get a decent couch on my newly limited, graduate student budget. The consensus was a place called Alperts. Still laughing from the beer mug, falling debacle, my Mom and I venture off into the unknown to buy a couch. My Mom is driving, we don't have a GPS, don't know the area too well, and briefly listened as my landlord gave us directions. Needless to say, we were driving around in circles. The worst part was, we could see the Alperts building from I-195 (it is hard to miss as it is a big tacky mirrored cube on the side of the road) but no matter what exit we took...we couldn't get there. We started cracking up again when out of nowhere, we see an Alperts delivery truck...FOLLOW THAT TRUCK. Off we went, trailing the big truck....right into a gas station. We patiently waited while he filled his tank and then followed him to the store a few blocks over. We had arrived.

Before we got out of the car, we had agreed on a game plan...stick to the budget...don't make eye contact with sales people and maybe they won't swarm us....do not tell them our budget....say we are only borwsing...decline help...no polite chit chat... all we needed to do was stick to the game plan and we would find our couch.

We hop out of the car and hear music. The Mexican Hat dance is being piped into the parking lot over speakers. Very odd. as we approach the building, we start to dance a little jig, see ourselves in the mirrored walls of the building and begin laughing all over again. We bust through the doors and are greeted by a slew of sales people who had just seen our antics through the one-way mirror. One sales person approached and asked if they could help. As i was saying, "no thanks, just browsing" my Mom is saying, "she just moved here. She has no couch. We have to buy one today. We're desperate and she only has $500 bucks." Way to stick to the plane, Mom. Why don't you just give him my social security number and my checkbook. Geez.

As it turns out, here was only one couch that fit the bill and fortunately, it was adorable. We paid and booked it out of there....straight to the Brick Alley Pub (http://www.brickalley.com) for alcohol and appetizers.