Gallery Insists on Saving You Money.

Seven and I, having come upon a fair amount of money lately, decided to go furniture shopping last weekend. This might sound like a safe venture, but as you may or may not know, Seven and I seem to have a knack for falling into really odd situations.

We decided to spend our Sunday comparing the prices we'd seen the day before at Ikea. We went to Gallery Furniture, as their commercials boast "Gallery saves you MONEY!" and money is precisely what we were looking to save. Gallery Furniture is somewhat of a local joke. The owner, Matress Mack insists on doing his own commercials, and he's even been featured on the Conan O'Brien show, along with rival insane furniture store owner Scott Hilton. Matress Mack may look like a dope on TV, but he's probably one of the richest men in Houston, at least prior to his recent purchase of some of Princess Diana's jewelry (this will come into play later in the story).

So, Seven and I make the short trip down I-45 and pull into the parking lot. There, we see the largest television set ever manufactured. There it is. Right there in the parking lot. If one wanted to watch the Olympics, but was stuck somewhere in earth's atmosphere without a television, he need not fear, as this TV would be plainly visible.

There were a few couches outside, which we assumed were the cruddy ones. We weren't at all impressed by the prices, however. If I'm going to buy a salmon-colored couch with white and green flowers on it, it's going to be because the couch was extra cheap. And it wasn't. There were a few armoires outside, each of which had a tag that read "Last One!" even though others exactly like them were in plain view.

We finally made our way into the store, where we began examining all the couches. Most of them were fairly ugly, and a bit too expensive. We broswed in peace for about five minutes, until one of the employees inquired as to whether or not he could help us find anything. We were sort of looking for a kitchen table, so we told him as much. He has us follow him over a bridge (?!) into another section of the store where he introduced us to another employee who would "help" us. We didn't intend on buying anything that day, and we wanted to look in peace. We didn't want some creepy guy hovering over us trying to make us buy every table we so much as glanced at. The guy finally either took the hint, or decided that two 20-something girls probably weren't going to buy anything major, so he left us alone.

I should probably tell you now that we were looking for furniture fairly prematurely. Not only do we not have the money yet, but we also haven't found a house. We're presently (inactively) looking for a rent house, but have had no luck so far. We're not going to buy any furniture until we get a house to put it in. That's fairly simple logic. Never fear, though. Gallery Furniture has a solution.

Next, this woman came up to us, and when she started talking, I knew we were in for it. She was intent on having us buy SOMETHING, and she wasn't about to leave until she had us properly swindled. She introduced herself, and asked our names. She acted as though she were our pal, calling us by our names every few minutes, and giving us free dinner passes (there's a restaurant inside the store). Then she went in for the kill. "So which of these will you be taking home today?" I told her we didn't have the money yet. She said that was fiiiine, because they have a very special lay-away program that required no money down. We told her we had horrible credit, and she said that too was fiiine, because they had specialists who would work with that. We told her we didn't have the house yet, which was also fiiine, because they would store the furniture we'd just purchased for us for a small fee. She said all of this as though we were absolutely nutty for thinking we'd wait until we had money or a house before we bought furniture. We firmly said no about a gazillion times and she finally went away.

It was then that we noticed the bowling alley. True, bowling alleys aren't things you normally miss, but we'd been so busy fending off enemies that we hadn't had time to look around. Aside from the bowling alley, there were about four glass cases containing the personal affects of Elvis Presley. One of his cars was parked inside the building. Various articles of his clothing, his first grade class picture, even his Exxon credit cards were there. In another section of the store, there was a building that resembled a playhouse, but on further inspection, was some sort of Princess Diana memorial. Inside was a big glass case containing the jewelry mentioned earlier. The walls were covered with various images of the Princess wearing the jewelry, and articles about her and her various charities.

We were left to our own devices for about ten minutes, and we actually found quite a few decent-looking sofas that came with matching loveseats for reasonable prices. Then we were attacked again. A young man who obviously fancied himself very attractive, I assume, because he winked and licked his lips at us every time we so much as glanced at him, decided that we needed to buy some sort of furniture and he was the one to make us do it. He was sorely mistaken. That sounds like we kicked him in the balls or something, and I'd like to say that we did. Only we didn't. We just ran from him. The words "Go away!" were spoken more than twice. We sought refuge in the kiddie furniture section until he went away.

We came out of hiding, and saw no employees anywhere. Had they all gone home? Had the store closed with us inside? We didn't know, but we were grateful. Now we were free to go look for that stupid bridge so we could hightail it out of there. Only problem was...where the hell did that bridge go? We couldn't find it. That store is like a maze. It was a nightmare. We walked past smelly leather couches, kitchen tables with fake flowers on them, and children's beds shaped like covered wagons. We walked past the Princess Diana memorial. We walked past screeching giant birds in cages. We thought we were going to pass out. Until we saw it. I've never been so happy to see a crumby piece of crap bridge in my life. We practically skipped over that damned bridge.

That was when it dawned on us what was going on. The exit was to our left, but directly in front of the door, arranged menacingly on various parts of furniture, were about seventy-five Gallery Furniture employees. They all turned to look at us, and their eyes glowed red. Evil smiles crept onto their faces. The automatic doors began to close and we made a mad dash for safety, narrowly escaping with our lives fully intact.