For Sale, Used Bedroom Set; Mark's Clutter and Dog Not Included.

Includes bed and two night stands. Same Broyhill furniture used on 'Everybody Loves Raymond'.

Mark is about twenty feet ahead of me, running through the doors of the furniture store. Our first stop had been worthless. It was one of those stores with each room put together, where for one low price you buy everything. Everything meaning, from the rugs on the floor to the pictures on the wall. It's what was between the rugs and the pictures that was so bad. Furniture made of particle board stapled together, with the drawers and every other unseen surface made of cardboard or thin plastic. The outer surfaces covered in what appeared to be photos of wood. The Florida humidity would soak into that shit, puff it up, and make it disintegrate within twelve months. So Mark and I decided that we should go to a more upscale store, one where the sales people didn't have gravy stains on their shirts.

I follow Mark into the second store and I am hit with the aroma of mold and borscht. A short stocky old man named Levi has already buttonholed Mark, and is escorting him up some stairs to the bedroom department. I don't want to like this old man, but he laughs at my jokes so I am putty in his hands.
"This is a great deal already. It's a closeout. You can't get a better price, and I tell you what, I'll throw in the second nightstand for free."
Mark is not having it. I am ready to throw money down, but Mark has us schlepping up and down the stairs, back and forth across the vast expanse of the store, comparing bedroom sets and haggling with Levi.
"Here you go boys, lay down on this mattress. Nice, right? Check out the drawers. That's real wood with dovetailing."
First of all Levi called us boys, and then he laughed at another one of my lame jokes. He had me right where he wanted me. The next thing I knew Levi was handing me my credit card back and thanking us for shopping at Carl's Furniture.

This all started when Mark and I agreed that re-decorating our bedroom would be our Christmas/birthday presents. Great idea I thought, until I signed that credit card receipt for half a years pay. Mark had originally wanted me to buy him a gun for Christmas. I refused imagining all sorts of horrible consequences that a gun in Mark's hands might bring. Now I am rethinking that idea, and I'm not so sure. If Mark were to use his Christmas present gun, as often as he has used every other expensive gift I have given him over the years, the thing will rust away before it ever shoots one bullet.