It’s finally here: The conclusion to my baby-shopping saga.
After two painful hours of shopping – no, not shopping, that is inaccurate – more like weight lifting car seats, the thought of more shopping seemed unbearable. But we were on a mission. We summoned what teensy bit of strength we still possessed and forged on. Enter Pottery Barn Kids.
Clouds part. Rays of light pour through. A chorus of angels breaks into song. This is what we I had been waiting for. Bliss.
I know a lot of people have beef with Pottery Barn and their franchises, like Phoebe from Friends.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUKcw8Jmwsw]
It is over-priced, massed-produced commercialism at its worst. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever. I embrace that over-priced, mass-produced commercialism. Takes all the guesswork out of home shopping. Instead of obsessing for hours if my home décor will accent my furniture properly, I can just flip open a catalogue and all the guesswork is done! Am I feeling Shabby-Chic? There’s a collection for that! Urban-Sophisticate? Another collection! How about Modern-Coastal? Yup! Another collection! The shop-by-room concept is simply brilliant.
Pottery Barn Kids is just as glorious. Because I had properly researched before entering the store, I knew what bedding I wanted. This is what I chose: Penelope Bedding
How adorable is that! It’s cute with a touch of sophistication. Because yes, my baby needs sophisticated bedding. Wouldn’t want to get overly cutesy. And this is what is so fantastic about PBK – I can match the bedding to the stroller blanket to the lamp to the wall decals to the valances. What’s a valance? I don’t know but I’ll take two! All this perfect coordination sets my little OCD heart a-flutter.
So there we were: Retail Heaven. Damon didn’t stand a chance. “Why is everything so… pink?” he asked. I couldn’t be bothered to answer such a silly question, so instead I took him over to the bedding to discuss color options: Pink/Chocolate or Pink/Green? These are the decisions that keep me up at night. I had initially decided upon and already registered for the pink/chocolate combination – I felt it was a tad chicer than the pink/green. But of course Damon preferred the pink/green. The sales associate backed him up, and I caved. Pink/Green it was! As the sales associate handed me the registry gun, I asked her to delete all my previous registry items. I was going to start fresh.
Off I went, scanning with a newfound fervor that I thought had been forever lost in Babies R Us. My baby was going to have the cutest-yet-sophisticated nursery on the block. (Meanwhile, Damon settled himself into an overstuffed glider chair and began checking email, completely oblivious to the fact that other customers actually wanted to test the chair). When I was satisfied with my scanning, I approached Damon. Time to talk rockers.
Damon and I agreed that the one piece of nursery furniture we would splurge on would be a rocker-glider. After all, we would be spending a lot of time in it. Damon had gotten quite comfortable in his email-chair, and was convinced this was the chair. We settled on a slightly smaller version, and went to order it and select the upholstery. Oh no – a collection of new agonizing decisions awaited us: What fabric? Pattern? Trim? We decided on white with a green trim: Matches the bedding but still gender-neutral should we have a boy in the future.
$1600. No joke.
We were high off the PBK experience and impulsively agreed to the purchase. So what if a nursery chair cost more than our mortgage payment? After all, we’d be spending a lot of time in it, right? This is where the torturing your husband part comes in.
As soon as the transaction was completed, receipts signed, ready to walk out the door content in our exorbitantly priced chair, I remembered a not-so-insignificant detail: I had several hundred dollars worth of Pottery Barn gift cards (leftover from our wedding) in my purse. I sheepishly turned to Damon and the sales associate. “You’re not going to believe this, but…”
“WHAT?” Damon bellowed. Okay, he didn’t bellow. He never bellows. But the color definitely drained from his face. The sales associate looked panicked. Reversing this transaction would not be easy. “Forget about it,” I said. “It’s not that much. It won’t make a dent,” I assured both Damon and the saleslady. So we left, those gift cards weighing heavily on my mind.
A few steps out of PBK, I suffered immediate buyer’s remorse. We did not just spend $1600 on a freaking CHAIR. “That was really, really stupid,” I gasped, hyperventilating. Damon tried to rationalize the purchase, but I could tell he was unconvinced as well. To make matters worse, I pulled out the gift cards to see just how much we had at our disposal. Over $900. Damon was not pleased.
To wrap this up, because it’s getting long even for me, we went inside, begged to cancel the transaction, found a much, much cheaper glider and paid with gift cards. Much more satisfactory all around. All was right with the world again, until the next morning I woke up and decided I really did prefer the pink/chocolate bedding and deleted all my efforts from the day before to start again online. It was then that Damon vowed we would never have more children. I can’t say I blame him.
Aww I do believe I’ve had similar experiences with Burberry bags. Somehow this seems more mature :). Can’t wait for baby’s arrival!!