Enlightened Living
When I was single, I didn’t have more than three pieces of furniture at any given time. A bed, a table, and a desk about summed it up. I was very Spartan, though I didn’t have a glistening six-pack or kick people down wells. No, I was my own man, living frugally and loving every minute of it.
I stashed my book collection on the floor, in tall towers and left my laptop on my desk. No TV, no cable — nothing. I was smug and free. In fact, my only treasured possession was an Alessi lamp my mother bought me for my birthday. Yes, my mother — I’m man enough to admit that. Anyway, I was my own man — until, I met my future wife.
By our fourth month of dating, we had moved into together. We found a place we could fit our respective stuff — most of it was hers. The move from my apartment was smooth as ice. It took me less then an hour to pack and load my stuff and move it into our new place. Her things, on the other hand, were a different matter. It took me almost five hours to move her into our new place.
Once we had all of our stuff in the same place, all of my ideas of decorating and frugality went out the window. I remember eating fast food on the floor the first night we were moved in. I naively mentioned that since we were going to use her bed in our bedroom, we could use my bed (which was a futon) as our couch. She fell silent and arched an eyebrow at me.
She looked down at my fast food wrappers and said “I don’t want to use your furniture.” Well, that got the whole discussion going. Turns out my wife-to-be was a design major. Aesthetics meant everything to her. So, I obliged her. I thought to myself, even the Roman Empire eventually fell. Why should I be any different? At least she let me keep the Alessi lamp. Thanks, mom.
Get yourself an Alessi lamp and make your wife’s day. It’ll be one of the only pieces she lets you keep.
