Monkey in the Middle

THIS week, Rob and I have finally taken the gigantic step into what feels like "old marriedhood," and gone couch shopping.... for NEW couches no less! Yay! It feels "old" married cause, who really has money to go couch shopping as newlyweds?! Not us! Admittedly, couches have been on our "to buy" list for some time now, but we didn't want to buy them right before we moved from Nebraska (extra baggage to move and all that such). However, now that we're safely in Texas, and because we had (literally) nothing else to do this week (our moving truck STILL has not arrived, but that's another story), we decided to go couch shopping!

Just so you know, Houston has NO zoning laws. One minute you'll be in what seems like a pretty decent area... the next... esta in la mexico!!... run down shacks and all. At first, Rob and I had the darndest time trying to find a decent place to go couch shopping. We always seemed to run into the stores whose large discount signs hung askew at one end and were manned by Jose, Paco or Amad. (Not trying to be racist here, just trying to paint a socioeconomic picture... you get the idea). Finally after a few dud hits, we found some stores we liked... and a few couches we liked. While most were your nomal hum-diggity-dum run of the mill furniture store, there was one store that sat in a class all of its own. For reasons I'll state, I seriously could not pass up the opportunity to blog about it. The store was called: GALLERY FURNITURE

Now, at first glance, this probably seems like a decent establishment, right? New paint, nice big sign, lovely modern art out front... I guess the first thing that should have tipped me off that something was off was the coral-type cage in front of the store. A coral? With hay? At a furniture store?? Did they have a petting zoo during the day? Weird. But figuring they just had some special event going on (a petting zoo to attract families with kids, maybe??) I brushed it aside.

Upon entering the store, we were greeted by a sales guy, who hurriedly hustled us around the store. It was huge! Lots of stuff to see... nice furniture to buy. A pretty decent place, I was thinking... that was, until I saw these in the middle of the store:

I kid you not. A huge cage full of monkeys sat in the middle of this store. When I asked the strange sales guy why there was a cage full of monkeys in his store, he shrugged and nonchalantly said: "They're our board of directors." At which point I was seriously contemplating the likelihood that transfiguration performed in Harry Potter was actually possible, and these poor monkeys actually WERE said board of directors, trapped under a spell by the evil sales guy. You can imagine then, that after my utter surprise at seeing a monkey cage in the middle of a furniture store, the large glass case full of these:

was not shocking in the least bit. The shareholders, perhaps?? Seems suspicious... Apparently the coral I saw out front housed ponies during the day... what the?? Am I the only one that finds this whole situation REALLY weird??

Although we did see a few couches at Gallery Furniture that we liked, the whole time we were there I couldn't help thinking that that the store was a part of some huge conspiracy I was missing out on. Like Hanzel and Grettle and the evil witch... who knew the Gingerbread house was just a trick? Or all those stone statutes in Medusa's garden... Percy Jackson and the Lightening Theif, anyone? If, in fact, the poor animals WERE real people trapped under a real life spell by evil furniture sellers, does that make me a co-conspirator for not trying to free them from the clutches of the story's wicked and coniving antagonist??

By the way, we DID happen to find new couches we liked. They're red (yesssss!) and they're being delivered tomorrow, horray!

And just because I know you're wondering, no, they did not come from the evil monkey store.