I went couch-hunting on Sunday. Couches aren’t quite as challenging as big game, but they do come pre-stuffed, which is a huge plus if you aren’t into recreational taxidermy. Actually, there wasn’t all that much “hunting” involved, since I already knew what I wanted and where to get it. Consequently, I was in a buoyant mood when I approached the sales assistant+ and announced that I wished to purchase a couch.
“Sorry sir,” proclaimed she, “This are carpets. Couches is over there” and gestured vaguely in the direction of lounge furniture before returning to the copy of ‘Heat’ that had been occupying her attention before I interrupted.
For a moment I thought she was taking the piss, but no – it would seem that not only are there people who cannot distinguish between a floor mat and a sofa, but there are sufficient numbers of them to warrant a polyester-bedecked sentry to point them in the right direction. This is disturbing.
Even more disturbing: apparently I look like one of these people.
+ They’re easy to spot: weird hairstyle; poor oral hygiene; fondness for artificial fibre; big plastic badge with “Sales Assistant” proudly emblazoned across it
the other side of the mountain 
Funnily enough, whilst I consider myself to be vaguely intelligent, I have made that mistake. Admittedly I was less than sober and as such, learnt that even though i couldn’t distinguish between the two, whichever one i ended up choosing was still not the right place to bring up a bottle of champagne. We all learn from our mistakes.
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Hee hee 🙂
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I think you missed the point: what she was saying was: “bugger out of my section, I don’t do couches, only carpets and the occasional rug, and my coffee break is in five minutes anyway…freak.”.
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Shoulda taken advantage of her expertise and asked her for a nice shag.
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Which store was this? Not House & Home, I hope.
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Hey .. at least you got some sort of customer attention!! Be grateful sir!!!! She at least pointed you in the right direction. Now! Imagine being a female looking for a power drill … yep! Helloooooo!!! ??
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LOL! Perhaps she’s training for the position of floor manager.
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it sounds like she only had just enough intellect to manage a floor. anything more mobile and quick witted would probably have defeated the poor thing
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xGW: Ah, so the lines become blurred when you consider function, rather than form? Come to think of it, most things become blurred when alcohol is involved.
betenoir: Well yes, I suppose you could look at like that. I prefer my theory. Fuck Occam and the razor he rode in on.
dolce: Call me shallow, but “weird hairstyle, poor oral hygiene and fondness for artificial fibre” makes the DIY section a lot more appealing.
pwpoisson: Then you hope in vain.
lemon: What kind of power drill?
terri: Nah, I think she’ll hit the vinyl ceiling before then.
dystopia: Oh I don’t know. Those floors can be slippery things.
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hello there polyester bedecked sentry person, please can you point me in the direction of bathroom decor? Oh sorry, my mistake, I just though you were…
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Sofa… so good. Clever. Very clever. I see what you did there. I like what you did there.
Clever chap eh? Let’s elope!
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Oh Kyk you are my new hero. No longer do I lust after Orlando (sorry Bête but there you have it). I go to buy a sofa, I know exactly what I want, I get thru carpets etc and shop assistants from outer Brooklyn, and I look at the sofas and suddenly I can’t live with any of them. I mean, the commitment alone scares me off…And it doesn’t help getting drunk first because then I just go off with the first one that tells me I’m pretty.
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Perhaps you need a badge, or a hat, proclaiming your expertise:
“I KNOW that a couch is not a carpet. Even more impressively, I know that a carpet is not a couch”.
Of course, adding the disclaimer that alcohol may impact your knowledge, and that the function of aforementioned items may be slightly less clear-cut, you may need a rather large hat. I think a badge is far too small, unless the font were minuscule and you enjoy people leering and squinting at you… I don’t like to judge, and besides, who am I to say that gaining enjoyment from such activities is “a bad thing”.
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ant: This are a blog. Barfroom stuffs are over there.
misogyny: How about you and Ant elope?
charmskool: Oh man, if I had a buck for every time I’ve heard a “talking couch” story…
fence: I’m thinking a troupe of minstrels would be more classy. I’m going to need a bigger car, though.
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your floating alien/multi-legged-octopus-with-black-testicles-on-either-side-of-its-face concerns me. ever so slightly.
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xGW: Only slightly? A visit to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster will address all your concerns.
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Love the new spaghetti monster thingy up top btw 🙂
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sweet weeping mother of tiramisu.
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Lol, I do suppose there are worse things you could look like. My guess is a dyslexic home furnisher isn’t the absolute worst.
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Oh kyknoord, no! I thought a clarsy guy like you would shop at Weylandts or even Coricraft. Homes & Home is so, so plebby.
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I have learnt a lot from Sales Assistants (apart from the Golden Rule of “only Speak when Spoken to”):
1: They were my sole motivation for a higher education. Thank you, Lateefa.
2: They don’t take their name badges off when shopping elsewhere. Therefore they will forever fall into the never-assume-she-is- pregnant category for me.
3: They will make terrible 30 seconds partners. They don’t understand descriptions involving words like “that thingey that…”.and quoting lyrics from songs (as opposed to, God forbid, humming the tune) will be met with a blank stare.
4: They generally put the ass back into assistant.
5: Sometimes, just sometimes, I catch myself thinking that it must be great to work set hours, catch up on some reading and just point sofa surfers in the right direction. (dodgy uniform/name badge, bad breath and weird hair aside)
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parenthesis: He loves you too.
xGW: On a stick!
livewire: I suppose not, but the thing that really bothers me is the potential discontinuity between the guy in the mirror and the person everyone else sees.
pwpoisson: Plebby? Si Caesar vivaret, ad remum dareris.
anicker: Sofa surfers? That explains why I had a team of four security guards trailing me through the shop.
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They be glad to sell you something in carpets, but in couches, not my territory.
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I can’t take the suspense!!!!
So did you, or did you not buy a couch laddie?
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I would so have slapped her upside her head.
Kung Fu style: Couching Tiger, Hidden Saleman
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..Dude, there’s a like alien thingie about to land on Table Mountain.
I saw it first!
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“Couches aren’t quite as challenging as big game, but they do come pre-stuffed…”
Now that is a very good comparison. I am wondering if it would be possible to convince “Big Game Hunters” to hunt couches instead. After all, most of them don’t know what ‘walk and stalk’ is anyway and they are couch potatoes who fire from the back of a vehicle.
I can just see the advert:
“Couch Potatoes! Come and hunt couches! Cheaper than game, easier to shoot, PRE-STUFFED. If you miss, you get to whack the rude sales assistant but you have to stuff her.”
Think it will catch on?
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ol’ hoss: A case of “Git orf muh layhnd, straynjah!”? At least she only used a magazine and not a shotgun to make her point.
peas: Hold on, I’ll check.
revo: Ja, but then you’d need to go for a tetanus shot. Not sure that makes for a positive result at the end of the cost/benefit equation.
peas (again): I hate to be the one to break it to you, but His Noodly Magnificence has been up there for ages and no, you didn’t.
katt: Maybe – if you have a catchy radio jingle as part of the campaign.
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Crap.
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she clearly doesn’t get a commission does she…
so which of these makes you look like one of them? “weird hairstyle; poor oral hygiene; fondness for artificial fibre” since i would assume you do NOT wear a plastic badge that says ‘sales assistant’ when you go shopping…
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