Bag of fruit and new couches

Are you in the area? I bought a couch today and it’s tied to the roof of my car. That’s what the text message I received one Sunday afternoon read. I tell you this because when she told me how cheap she had purchased this brand new couch, I asked where she got it because I too was in the market for a new couch. There was a miscommunication and I found myself at the Goodwill near downtown L.A. I walked in and immediately saw that there were no new couches, in fact, most of the furniture was pretty beat up. There was however the distinct smell of hot sauce in the air. I found the smell strange seeing how Goodwill is not like IKEA, they don’t have a restaurant inside. I turned to leave and then I saw it, the source of the hot sauce aroma. A mother and daughter standing at one of the used tables for sale, their lunch sitting on said table with a bottle of hot sauce for extra flavor. I thought immediately, “who the fuck eats their lunch in a Goodwill?”

Another conversation revealed that the place she had purchased the couch was actually just down the street from the Goodwill/lunch destination. A few weeks later she agreed to accompany me on my return trip to downtown to insure that I made it to the right place. I found a couch, but before I could purchase it I really needed to think about it, a couch is a big commitment, you sit on it every day. I sat on it, sat across from it, looked at it, asked what she thought, asked if it was comfortable to her, then I sat on it again, is this the couch I will sit on everyday for the near future? At the moment I finally decided to purchase the couch their internet connection went down, meaning they were unable to charge my credit card. I was given two options, wait for someone to probably reset a cheap Linksys router, which we all know can sometimes be a long process, they really do suck, or we could go to the bank about a mile away and get cash. We agreed that we would go to the bank, giving me more time to over-analyze my purchase. When we returned we realized that we were going to miss lunch and wouldn’t eat until dinner. The taco truck wasn’t serving food anymore but the fruit cart was and for just four dollars we purchased a quit large bag of mixed fruit. Now that I was paying for the couch with cash, I really had to look at it again, now the money was real, swiping your card is easy, handing over cash is something completely different. We sat on the chair across from the couch, looking at it one more time, both of us with a fork in hand, eating our bag of fruit, in a place just a block away and quite similar to Goodwill. I realized then, you don’t plan to have lunch at Goodwill, it just happens. “Who the fuck eats their lunch in a Goodwill?” Apparently I do.