Nightstands

Two weeks ago, I posted an ad on Nextdoor.

I was selling some cherry nightstands that I bought from my brother when I got divorced which he had bought from his neighbor when he got married. They never actually matched anything and lacked adequate storage space to stow my husband’s cPap machine. Replacing these nightstands had become Furniture Priority #1 after our Maine Coon, suffering from an untreated mastication addiction, had punctured one of the machine’s tubes — an incident that nearly cost him both his home and his life.

My husband took first stab at replacing our bedside accessory by ordering a set of new custom nightstands from a darling Canadian woodworker on Etsy. These nightstands took 12 weeks to arrive, came unassembled, required three separate postage payments upon delivery, weighed approximately 7,000 pounds, were not returnable, and appeared to have been constructed to accommodate the needs of a very tiny person with a very tiny room who needed very heavy nightstands. With hopeful disregard for the obvious diminutiveness, I set one up and went so far as to stage it next to the bed, but the sight of it seemed to bring on such a strong shame response in my husband that I quickly relocated it to a child’s room, placed it’s unassembled companion in the garage and will likely sell them both when enough time has passed that we can laugh about it.

I then ordered regular human-sized nightstands from Anthropologie, complete with a satisfaction guarantee and ample cPap storage, and proceeded to list for sale the post-divorce, undersized-drawered cherry ones on Nextdoor.

The first response I got about the nightstands was an inquiry as to their dimensions. Which was a very reasonable question and one I wish we had thought to ask our Canadian woodworker friend. In my case, this gentleman decided that my nightstands were far too large for his space and he wished me well. I considered offering to sell him the set of spectacularly undersized nightstands currently secreted away in dark corners of my home, but was soon distracted by another message in my inbox. This one came from a woman named Samantha. On this particular selling app, a person’s picture is attached to their message so I could see that Samantha was a pleasant-looking woman who enjoyed cocktails with her friends and looked great in a visor. I admired this about her because I, like many other gaunt people of Scottish descent, look like an asshole in a visor. She looked tan and fun. She also offered to take my nightstands, at full asking price, with total disregard to their dimensions.

After confirming our mutual intent to move forward with the sale, I got distracted by some child or animal in my vicinity and then temporarily forgot I was even selling nightstands. So I missed her urgent response asking to meet that very day as she only came into town once a week and today was that day. During my silence, she proceeded to resend her message 13 more times with each iteration belying an ever deeper conviction that the Nextdoor app was no longer functioning and her messages were not getting through to me. Upon returning to my phone an hour or so later and realizing that Samantha only got out once a week and that she thought an app that fully functioned in one moment could spontaneously collapse and then be miraculously fixed by sheer willpower intrigued me. She looked pretty put together in her picture — and fun to boot with all the cocktailing and visor-wearing — but she seemed like someone who may need a hand navigating this transaction. When I finally responded and she noted that she wasn’t sure if the nightstands would fit in backseat of her Honda Civic, I decided then and there that I would just bring them to her.

Generally speaking, sellers never deliver. There’s the obvious reason that the buyer may decide they don’t want your wares and then you have to schlep them back, but also the very real possibility that they could be a murderer. But instinct told me that this Civic-driving-once-a-week-to-town lady wasn’t going to turn me into a Dateline special. So I offered the concierge treatment. She texted me directions, thanked me profusely, warned me about her dog and then I was on my way.

Her place was actually a carriage house behind a nice Cape Cod in the middle of nowhere. The route to her house took me through every patch of idyllic farmland in the tri-county area and then snaked me through the woods and up and down gravel roads. I reached her place, confirmed by the barking of a dog, and knocked on the door. She hollered me in and I was greeted by Fritz.

Her previous warning about Fritz had not been an ominous one — more of a disclaimer.

“He barks,” she said, “but then he’s going to love you to death.”

As soon as I opened the door, Fritz was on me like white on rice. Fritz is perhaps one of the more conventionally unattractive dogs I’ve seen outside of internet memes. He had the full-sized body of a brindled pit bull, but some cruel joke of breeding cursed him with a bug-eyed, apple-shaped head of a Chihuahua.

I busied myself petting Fritz and lying about how handsome he was instead of directly interacting with Samantha in order to stall the eventuality of her discovering I had parked my car halfway down the driveway. What had made perfect sense only moments ago upon my approach now made me feel flustered and childish. Despite the driveway and house being exactly as described in her texts, and her explicitly telling me to pull all the way up to the house since I was there TO DELIVER HEAVY OBJECTS, I still stopped halfway up. My neurotic brain had been yelling at me that this was the wrong house, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, and my panicked solution was to park 100 yards from the house because…well I can’t really grasp any reason why I would do that. Samantha couldn’t either apparently and, baffled by my idiocy, asked, “Why did you park way back there? I told you to pull all the way up.”

I don’t know lady. I don’t know. Awkward is the only life I’ve ever known.

I sheepishly got back in my car and drove it the last bit up the driveway with Samantha looking on disapprovingly and then unloaded the very large nightstands into her very cluttered, but also very adorable, little home.

“You’re a lot prettier than your Nextdoor picture,” she said next.

“Oh. Well, thanks!” I replied. Then realized that accepting a compliment without immediately detracting from it was very un-Southern female of me.

“My hair looks terrible today. I didn’t get a chance to do anything with it.”

Phew. Saved it. Now she would see that I knew my place in this world.

She didn’t seem to hear this. She just looked right at me and said, “You should change your picture on there. It’s really bad.”

Now I was curious. How bad was this picture? I’ve never been accused of being without vanity so the thought that I would publicly post a terrible picture of myself is somewhat surprising. As she fumbled with figuring how to pay me through Paypal, I pulled out my phone and looked it up. Not that bad, I didn’t think. But I made a mental note to change it anyway.

Huh, I thought. I’m really surprised that I’m not at all offended by this stranger’s declaration. I’m actually really pleased. No one ever says anything that brutally honest to me. The only critical feedback I ever really get is that I’m too sensitive for critical feedback. I felt in this moment that not only could Samantha see me, but that she was going to tell me what she sees. Maybe what everybody sees. I wanted to stand in the doorway of her little carriage house and just get hit with the truth for a little while.

So I did. She did most of the talking. It didn’t take long for her to tell me she was divorced, that she really didn’t get along with one of her kids and that she would be getting some really nice furniture soon because her piece-of-shit ex was finally going to let her at the storage unit where all her old good stuff was squirreled away. I couldn’t imagine her fitting one more of anything into her house but I nodded encouragingly. Periodically interspersed in the diatribe about her divorce and family dramas were questions about me. I attempted to respond with my brand of deferential politeness, interacting in a way that is unoffensive, accommodating and more about buying time to figure out what someone else wants to hear than actually conveying emotion or information.

She wasn’t having it. After unsuccessfully sidestepping a question about my relationship status she said, “Wait, you’re divorced? But you’re so young!”

“Yeah, I guess so. It’s pretty sad. Ha!”

The “ha” was an auto-response I use to smooth things over. I felt I had misstepped by using the word “sad” and inadvertently made her feel uncomfortable with my vulnerability so I needed to backtrack and let her know that being divorced and young, while sad, was also totally ok with me. Don’t feel sorry for me lady! I think being sad is actually funny! My life is one hilarious joke!

Samantha’s face said “Nope.”

“It’s not sad. You’re just divorced. Why are you saying that it’s sad? I’m divorced, I’m not sad. Don’t say it’s sad. Just tell me to mind my business.”

“Ha!”

Another auto-response.

But wait a minute. I’m allowed to tell someone to mind their own business? That’s something people do? That’s something women do?

She shifted. “Well, tell me about the nightstands. Are you redecorating?”

“Um…” I start to respond.

“Don’t respond to that!”

Oh! It was a test!

“It’s none of my business if you’re redecorating! You don’t know me. You drove these things all the way out to my house and hauled them in and then I’m going to hold you up from going home to your family asking you about redecorating? Seriously, tell me to shut up.”

I’m in love with this woman.

It has become obvious that I need this person in my life. I feel like there is extra warmth from the sun on my back as I stand in her doorway absently petting her weird ass Frankenstein dog. The universe has set this in motion. We were supposed to have a cat that chewed tubes on my husband’s cPap so that I would have to get new nightstands twice so that I could meet her and she could change my entire outlook on life. I look around her living room and imagine myself sitting here, drinking coffee, talking about life and soaking up lessons on how not to give a f#*!.

I can’t help myself. I ask, “Can I have your number? I want to be friends with you.”

I said that. I said, “I want to be friends with you.” I don’t think I have ever asked someone to be my friend. My fear of rejection is the strongest muscle in my body. I feel as if I’m drunk on the adrenaline of someone finally telling me how it is without being afraid I’m going to fall apart. She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know I tend to fall apart. She thinks I’m normal!

Her Paypal payment goes through, she agrees to send her contact information and we part ways. I receive a message through the app about an hour later. It’s Samantha sharing her number.

I don’t respond right away.

She sends it several more times.