Couldn't You Have Stopped The Madness?
It was the wife that spotted it. On holiday in Florida, we were passing time in a rainstorm, wandering around this massive furniture warehouse type place just outside Naples. There’s money down there – big money – and a lot of it goes into bricks-and-mortar. It’s all about opulence, extravagance and filling big, huge homes with fancy stuff. Special treatments – trompe l’oeil and faux finishes – marble baths, gold taps, big pools, fancy features and the like. And chandeliers. Gigantic glass chandeliers with thousands of pieces, hung in massive atria – all guaranteed to deliver that elusive ‘wow’ factor.
She saw it. Like a lioness homing in on its prey, she spotted the chandelier we apparently had to have for our new place. A 5-foot long waterfall of multi-coloured glass and tiny, delicate bulbs – I admit it was pretty. But… but… It was five thousand dollars. And once she’d seen it, nothing else would do.
We’d pushed the boat out and stretched our finances to breaking point for the house, but she was still spending, and there wasn’t much I could do to stop her. I could see the veins standing out on her neck as she engaged with the salesman. Would they ship to the UK? Please say no. Yes, of course they would. Drat! Although they could pack it up, they clearly had no idea how to get it to the UK, or what was involved. Even then I thought I might be saved, but then the wife pulled out her iPhone and before I could stop her, she’d Googled “UK Customs Clearance” and come up with a name – Customs Clearance Ltd. She even made the call then and there, got a local shipping contact, had the forms faxed to the shop and tied up the deal so fast it made me quite faint.
So, Customs Clearance Ltd, back there in the UK, calmly awaiting the arrival of one magnificent, delicate and very, very expensive chandelier which definitely doesn’t qualify as a holiday souvenir, just whose side are you on, guys? You made it too easy! Couldn’t you have stood in the way of this credit-busting purchase? Couldn’t you have said, “oh, that’s far too tough for us to handle”? Couldn’t you have stopped the madness? No. You guys are just too efficient!
28th July 2010
