No Accounting for Taste

     B and I are having a bit of a contretemps. She's being very unreasonable, in my opinion, so I thought I'd reach out to my friends in the blogosphere for some support. Because as you'll soon see, my position is obviously right, and B is just being ... impossible!

     It all started a few weeks ago when B and I were helping out at the used book sale at our local library. We were setting up, when what should come through the door as a donation but the coolest, neatest, bossest bookcase you've ever seen. It's custom made. It's homemade. By a master handyman, lovingly crafted for his child.

     Before the sale started, the ladies in charge of the book sale decided on a $50 price tag for the bookcase. But before the doors opened, they decided $50 was perhaps a bit too ambitious. They put a $40 sticker on it as the book sale began. They placed this piece of furniture in the back of the room, hoping it would draw people through the rows of books -- kind of like the way the supermarket places milk at the back of the store.

     Okay, the bookcase didn't sell for $40, so we moved it up next to the checkout counter and brought the price down to $30. Surely someone would grab it now.

     At 2 p.m. we dropped the price to $10, as a couple of the women started worrying about what we would do with this bookcase if it didn't sell at all. At 4 p.m. we marked the price at $5, but still it didn't sell, and the bookcase went into storage in the coat closet with the leftover boxes of books.

     We gave away the books -- some to the senior citizens home in town, and some to the prison up the highway. Our last disbursement occurred this past weekend when we went over to the library to help a woman load the last of the boxes into her SUV -- she is going to use the books in her literacy program and ESL classes.

     After all the boxes were gone, I spied the bookcase standing up against the back wall of the closet. "So I'll take the bookcase if no one else wants it," I ventured.

     The woman in charge of the book sale gave me a puzzled look. "Really?" she replied. "Well, go ahead, take it. We need to get rid of it."

     "Get rid of it?" I said. "It's a really cool bookcase. I can put it in my bedroom."

     That's when B came around the corner. "What's going on?" she challenged.
 
     "The bookcase," I explained. "I'm taking the bookcase."

My new bookcase, temporarily relegated to the basement.

     "No, you're not," she said, looking slightly panicked.

     "Yeah, we can put it in the corner of our bedroom."

     "No, we can't."

     "Well, alright, we can talk about that, but surely we can find someplace for it," I countered.

      "You're not serious."

     "Don't worry," I said, "it'll look good." I wedged the bookcase onto the dolly and carted it out the door. I wheeled it out to her minivan and slipped it into the back. B trailed after me, "You're really taking that?" she kept asking.

     And so, long story short, the bookcase is currently residing in our basement. I want to bring it upstairs to the bedroom. She wants me to bring it out to the curb for trash collection.

     Now, tell me the truth, don't you think it's pretty cool? One of a kind. Admit it . . .  wouldn't you like to have something like this in your bedroom? We're lucky to get it. So, come on, don't you agree it merits a special place?