greetings from the island of misfit furniture

greetings from the island of misfit furniture

there is a storm raging outside. and one inside as well. the summer has not lessened its ferocity. i am home, just, from work. a long day of moving and checking and translating my vision into a marketable commodity. harder, some days than others. in some ways, easier, too. and if knowledge is power, then i am a goddess...if only for a few weeks more.

only i know what is yet to be seen, unwrapped, and imagined in a new room. only i can divine what is still to be had. their fortunes rest in my head and in my hands. i am the guest of honor in every meeting, every conversation. i am a prophet and a prom queen. and i have grown tired of the sound of my own name.

you may have guessed it takes awhile for me to wind down from the day. i may be bruised, aching, bone weary, and still, i have these eruptions of mental energy - where i'm almost too tired to write, but too wired to do anything but.

things are good here, thank you for asking. the sale is finally in full bloom. seven days in and eighteen to go. we finished last week way over our goal and we will surpass that this week. the idea fills me with both joy and fatigue.

it's a delicate dance, this 'sale' business. one not many people can appreciate. discovery, placement, vision - these are fundamental to the process - the basic steps, if you will, to performing the dance well. i perform the dance well. it is not my ego talking. it is a fact.

here's how it works...twice a year we have an 'end of season' sale. it's how we remove discontinued (or 'disco'd' as i like to call it) merchandise off the floor to make room for the new season. it's easy. we lower the price. people buy it. when there are no more in the warehouse, we sell the floor model and bring in the new merch. see? not too tough. during this sale, we also bring in 'closeouts.'

these are pieces that were returned to the main warehouse because of damage, wrong color, the customer changed their mind after the dog laid on it, canceled custom orders, whatever ... so it can't be returned to stock or sold at full price. it's the island of misfit furniture, if you will.

the trick is knowing what to get and knowing how to get it and i am a master magician. i know what to look for. what not to be afraid of. i know how to trace the origins of a sku and i am fluent in the language of buyers and the distribution channels. i've studied our sales. analyzed the patterns. i've learned how to repair things so i know what will last and what can be salvaged. i know how to price things so that people think they've 'found' a great deal. and i know that price is sometimes not as important as how quickly they can get it into their homes - and i know how to make that happen. i listen to our customers, so i know what they will buy. and i listen to our sales associates, so i know what they can sell. i do not let them underestimate themselves.

ordinarily, you never really know what condition things will be in; you never know if the description is correct - if it's the color or size or even the type of merchandise it's supposed to be - but i know how to find the answers, so we don't have as much guesswork as everyone else. my biggest problem? space. every truck day i have this lovely floor plan worked out and it's usually shot to hell after the first twenty pieces or so. it's my own version, i suppose, of that old anthropologist's adage about revising one's question after arriving in the field.

but it always works out. we sell things faster than we can unwrap them. i've never seen anything like it...and i thank my lucky stars for every bruise, every cardboard cut, every muscle strain, every 4:30 a.m. wake up call. i never thought this is what i'd do for a living, but it is. and i love it. though, by the end of 'truck days' i do find i grow a bit weary of everyone vying for my attention.

one more thing and then i'm done with shop talk. one of the joys of the sale, for me, is watching the sales associates react to what i bring in. they are a jaded lot. they have seen (and likely rejected) it all. i take particular pride when one of them finds a piece they want to take home. this time, almost all of them have purchased something. they've run around the floor like children under a christmas tree unwrapping and oohing and ahhing and i sit back and listen to the din and, as silly as it sounds, i nearly burst with pride. it must be something akin to the feeling an author gets when someone buys a book or the pride of an artists when she sells something at a showing.

this time, even i wasn't immune to the charms of misfit furniture. i splurged on a chaise. chocolate brown, chenille, fluffy cushions, rolled arms - divine. it's more traditional than i'd usually consider, but it will work well, i think, with my eclectic taste...and maybe a new throw pillow.

so, tomorrow, i will curl up in it and read for a bit, test drive it for a nap. we're supposed to have more of these storms. the kind where the rain defies gravity - again - where an umbrella is only good for decoration or for entertaining the wind.

this is my favorite kind of storm...where the drops are cool on the skin and the puddles are warm - heated instantly by pavement baked in the summer sun. i like to stand in the middle of it all and let the rain fall where it will. i leave no puddle unsplashed. people look at me like i may be slightly off balance. and i am. but tomorrow is my day off. so, i don't have to be perfect. i can just be real. and wet. and happy.