Out with the old...

Tom and I made a deal before we moved: the couches that I have hated since I met him wouldn't come to Italy with us.  This deal was not held up as the couches have been sitting in Italy (with the new pungent smell that they acquired on the trans-Atlantic journey) for ten months now. 

On January 26, 2012 we bought and paid for new couches from the Navy Exchange's Italian Furniture store.  At the time, the sales woman told us that the new couches would be delivered in 4-6 weeks.  Each time week after the sixth, I would call, and she would extend the completion date by 2 weeks.  Low and behold, after I had given up hope, cursed Italian furniture producers and come to terms with the blue chanille couches dating back to Tom's ex-girlfriend, they called. 

Tom and I very generously paid $61 (please pick a more random delivery fee), to have the couches delivered to our apartment in what is best described as "uptown Naples."  The road is narrow, always packed with cars and we sit on the 7th floor (technically they say we live on the 5th European floor, but we're up one past where the elevator goes + 1 for American standards). 

4 hours after the scheduled delivery time (and several episodes of Numb3ers later (I've become freakishly obsessed with the Epps brothers on that show.  Crime and math?? Win, win!)), my buzzer rang and they said "Ciao, Toemoss.  Furniture."  When I told my boss that I needed the afternoon off to accept my new couches, he laughed at me for being a rookie who actually waits at home at the correct time of furniture delivery and then said something about how two stick-thin Italian men would arrive with my couch sometime between 4 and 5 pm.  To be fair, there are 3 stick thin Italians but they did show up at 4:43pm for the 1:00 delivery. 

Upon bringing the loveseat upstairs, they grunted about how heavy it was and then stood in silence, staring at my cat's "condo."  Just staring.  "Che cosa?" one of them whispered.  "Per gatti?"  Phones emerged from pockets as the three thin Italian movers began taking pictures of my three floor cat condo.  "Bellissimo..."  "It's amazing."  "I've never seen anything like it."  I gave them each a bottle of fizzy water, which they happily accepted, dropped off their European man-bags and kept staring.  "Per gatti.  Fantastico."   

They are moving the larger, supposedly 600 lb sofa up now.  It has a pillow-top queen sized pullout mattress on a steel frame inside.  I also requested that it be filled with gold boullion and bricks, just for ease of movement. 

Our next adventure will be the removal of the old couches, my previous buyer at the 6 week mark having fallen through.  What exciting adventures will be in store whence those get to be moved as well....

Fear not, dear readers, where there is awkward, I'm surely not far behind!
Lynne