Y’all, I’ve got a story for you! And it’s a long one so grab a glass of wine or some popcorn (or both!) and settle on in for story time.
Okay, so this story begins about two months ago on one of my many weekly trips to Target. Jordan and I made our way back to the seasonal section with hopes that it had been updated. Jk, we were going back there for the discounted Valentines Day candy.
Right there, in the seasonal section of Target is when I fell in love with the most GORGEOUS wicker egg chair I had ever seen in my life. I knew in that moment I had to have this beauty in my life. I ran over to the chair, hearts in my eyes, and picked up the price tag, only to have my heart broken into a billion pieces. My mom always said I have champagne taste on a beer budget and this chair was no exception. So I walked away that day with a mission that I was going to own this chair! When…. it went on sale at the end of the season, of course!
So on my weekly Target trips over the next two months, I would go visit “my chair”. No matter who I was with! My sister, my mom, my dentist; I would always tell them I had to go by and visit my chair. Each time we visited, the price stayed the same. At every visit, Jordan and I would go back and forth about whether we were going to bite the bullet and get the chair. All I could envision was how STUNNING it would look in my studio and all of the sessions I could photograph with it. Each visit we’d have the same great debate. Jordan even offered to purchase it for me as a congratulations gift for my first publication but I just couldn’t justify spending the money at that time. Until.. I booked a session that I knew the chair would be PERFECT for.
I finally decided if I had spent this much time debating whether or not to purchase this chair, visiting said item weekly, and I could use it for my session; then I should probably just go ahead and buy it. Jordan and I had already been to Target that day to visit my chair and were still in town running errands. I pulled up the Target app with hopes of purchasing it for pick up, but as I scrolled through their site I was met with heartbreak once again. No Target store within a 100 miles had this chair in stock. Even worse, online was “temporarily out of stock”. Which I found out is a polite way of saying “this is a seasonal item and we are no longer making them, sorry.” We called several stores who confirmed it was true and that they could not sell the floor model until the end of the season, nor could they give us a discount on the busted up floor model. I felt like I was experiencing my first break up all over again. I tried searching for stores further than 100 miles and still no luck. I was devastated. So I went home, heartbroken but I was not giving up hope that I would one day own this chair.
Fast forward to this week, we’re in Charlotte, I can’t sleep so… I start scrolling through my phone to see if a Target near Charlotte had my chair in stock. Nope. Okay, so .. what about a Target that was kind of on our way home? 10 stores come up and one has a status I’ve never seen before… “1 available”. Could it be true? Have I finally found my chair? I had seen a “limited availability” status only to call the store to find out that was just a cruel way of saying “sorry boo, we thought we may have your chair but we really don’t.” So I did have a little bit of faith as I tried to calm my mind down before I could call the store when they opened at 8:00 am. It was the longest night EVER!
I woke up promptly at 8:00 am to Jordan’s dismay, called Target and spoke to my favorite person in all of Target history who told me that they did have my chair in stock. I’m pretty sure I jumped up and down on the bed yelling “they have my chair, they have my chair”! This store was an hour and a half away from where we were staying and 3 hours from our home, so I told them we’d be there asap! We got up, packed our bags, and hit the road. I was full of excitement, Jordan … not so much. He had hopes of sleeping in. Oh, the things you do for love.
We arrived at the store and I’m practically running to customer service to pick up my baby! Jordan and I play rock, paper, scissors to decide who’s paying and I win which never happens so clearly.. this is going to be a good day. And then we turn around and see the biggest box I’ve ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE. Y’all, it was HUGE. Still not giving up hope, we decided it would probably; maybe; possibly fit in the back of my Cherokee with the seats down. We drive our car around and are greeted by literal Target Angels who try their hardest to make this chair fit into our car in the box. It’s a big no go. So then we’re like hey… lets try and take it out of the box and see if it fits. Nope. Ain’t happening. No matter how many ways we tried to turn it, this chair was not going in. Unfortunately, Target does not allow for you to ship items from their store to your home and as we all know, online was “temporarily out of stock”. We’re almost defeated when one of the Target Angels suggests that we could buy ratchet straps and strap the largest piece on top of our car. It wouldn’t be too high that we couldn’t go under bridges and it’s a wicker chair so it’s not air resistant. This being our only option, we purchased the straps and the Target Angel helped us strap this baby down and we’re off in the wind. Our drive back home was three hours but.. it felt like 5 years. However, it was pretty entertaining seeing everyone’s faces as they tried to figure out what the heck we had strapped on the top of our car. But guess what y’all, I finally have MY CHAIR!!! Ahhh!!! And I love passing on the love so she is available for all in home studio sessions! Yay!! So.. if you need me in the near future, I’ll be cuddled up working in this beauty!
Happy Friday, Loves!
xoxo
PS – Shout out to the best hubby ever for putting up with my crazy adventures! At least we’ll always have fun stories to tell our grandchildren!
For making it this far, here is a bonus image of what our 3 hour drive home looked like! Oops! Totally worth it though. 🙂