Keith Tronic: “You need to grow up Brock, seriously. Why are
you going out and tossing money around left and right buying things like new
snowboards? When in all reality you need to go buy something that an adult
would purchase, like, a couch. Then you’ll be respected.”
Said one of my best friends three years ago…
For full effect, download “Hero” by Regina Spektor and play
at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.
I don’t buy couches because, well, I just don’t buy
couches. But remember that one time when
Life Insurance policies and HOA fees grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and
said that I needed to finally grow a pair and start being a big kid? Well, that
was last Tuesday and so far I haven’t had the best track record at making big
kid decisions. Especially when it comes
to leather-bound pieces of Espresso-colored furniture that come with a matching
Ottoman.
For the record, I would like to state that for the majority
of my post-pubescent life I have been living with the reputation of someone who
has no soul, someone who is cruel and harsh. People presume that I am a man
that shows no pity for a three-legged puppy that hasn’t been fed since
February. Well let me tell you something.
You’re wrong.
I’m a six-foot stuffed teddy bear with a big red ribbon from
Costco smothered in sugar, spice, and everything else nice. That is of course
when you compare me to Keith.
Ladies and gentlemen, Keith has no soul. And I mean that in
the highest of regards. In comparison to the Grinch, or Genghis Khan, or any
other fictional character out there, Keith would put them to shame. I mean this
in all sincerity and absolute respect for the man when I say that Keith Tronic,
the businessman who is my polar opposite, is pure blackness.
Take for instance the infamous couch-purchasing incident of
’13. And yes, my life is a historical
account that kids will read about in years to come therefore I refer to the
events in the same tone as though they were natural disasters that killed
hundreds on a washed up beach. Since living in my new townhome I decided to put
on a pair of big boy undies and begin purchasing furniture to decorate the
manscape that will be seen as the inside of my home.
And yes, I just referred to my interior decorating attempts
as my manscape. Shut your face and keep
reading.
I’ll cut to the chase to save you from an abundantly long
list of pointless details that don’t add anything to the moral behind this
entire story. I bought a couch, I got screwed. Plain and simple. That seems to
be the perfect way to describe what happens when you purchase a sectional from
a furniture store back in mid-July, and Tracie, the interior decorator decides
to tell you your piece is being put on backorder again, this time until
November and that you’re not actually going to be getting the matching
checkered Ottoman like she said you would be getting originally.
Tracie: “I’m sorry sir, now would you please bend over at a
45-degree angle, this curtain rod is only going to hurt just a little bit.”
This is the part where as I began to shamefully move to my
submissive stance, awaiting the violent curtain rod’s insertion, when Keith
Tronic took over and let the black plague be unleashed with his cold-hearted
businessman tactics of negotiation.
Keith: “NO! That’s not what’s going to happen! Here’s the
deal Missy, either you give my client a bigger, softer, and more expensive
couch for the exact same price as he paid for the piece of crap you sold him
back in July that STILL hasn’t been delivered, or I’m calling Child Protective Services
and the DEA on your butt and taking down your entire business right here on the
spot! YOU HEAR ME?!”
For a little bit of clarification, yes Keith suddenly did
endorse himself as my agent, i.e. I was his client despite the fact that I was
sobbing in the corner trying to hide my suddenly soaking wet panties underneath
a plastic end table, and yes he did use both an adoption and drug agency as
threats to get a furniture store to budge from the unheard of price they were
asking me to pay. True story.
I thought I was screwed.
I thought I was dead. I thought I
would have to live the remainder of my life watching college football laying on
dirty carpet every Saturday morning and I would never be held in the arms of a
modern-day leather sectional with an extended chaise lounge.
#firstworldproblems
Tracie: “You’re absolutely right sir, we owe your client
that much. And would you like our storeowner’s testicles giftwrapped in paper
or plastic?”
Yes kids, Keith’s no-nonsense, cut the bull crap, my-way-or-no-way
attitude got me what I wanted, what I needed. Never mind the fact that the word
compassion has yet to enter his bloodstream since his inception, and that
Tracie has a trail of DEA hounds sniffing out the possibility of an underground
drug trafficking operation in her basement, in the world of business Keith gets
what he wants. And he doesn’t care who, or what gets in his way.
The world we live in is a sad, cruel, overly dangerous place,
with deceptive furniture salesman littering the streets left and right looking
to take advantage of big tall oafs such as myself who show a scarred monster on
the surface but are giant teddy bears of fluff underneath. If there is one
thing I can take from this though, one moral lesson I learned in my week and a
half long adventure of being a man, it’s this:
Don’t screw with Keith.
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