A Print Odyssey

I ordered the print three weeks ago. I had been looking for something enormous that would fill the space over my sofa. The wall is huge and off-white and... empty. Finally I found something perfect and it was (gasp) $200.00. So, naturally I bought it and when they told me that I would have to wait two weeks I cheerily agreed (cheer is my usual attitude with salespeople--it makes things go ever so much more smoothly.) So three weeks later after three phone calls to this place, they tell me that I can pick the behemoth print up at 3:00p.

Now normally I avoid the Santa Anita Fashion Park, but there is an Express there, so I have to visit every once in a while. I had also unfortunately purchased the print at a store in the Fashion Park, so off to Arcadia I was. I found a parking space after five minutes or so and went in to the mall. The print was not at all ready, but I waited about twenty minutes and they produced it for me, wrapped in a plastic bag. I carried the gigantic thing to my car and hoped that I could find a way to fit it inside.

This was not to be. I tried for ten minutes to find a way for this thing to fit in my car but no cigar. In addition, I noticed that the print wasn't finished after all: the non-reflective plexiglass shielding the print was coming apart from the frame. So I carried the motherfucker back into the mall and told the staff about my problem. They promised to fix it toute suite and I drove my ass to Target for some bungee cords and (for some reason) Reveal light bulbs--I'm addicted to purchasing those things.

Back to the Santa Anita Fashion Park where I was in and out of the print store in minutes and strapping the artwork to the roof of my car with a single bungee. The moment I hit a speed above 15 mph, though, the whole thing rose up off the roof and behaved as though it would fly away. So I pulled over and strapped another bungee onto the print. The flyaway threat was still there, but less emphatically. I decided to risk it and drive side streets all the way back to Pasadena so I wouldn't have to go too fast. I turned my hazard lights on and hoped people wouldn't get too pissed at me.

Then it started to rain.

It was the longest drive home ever (well maybe not as long as that trek home from the wine country last November.) The artwork survived, however, and is currently looking like a million bucks hanging above my sofa.