The desk

Last fall, I bought a desk. It was lovely and perfect and the wrong one was delivered at first. 'An omen,' I should have thought. 'Forget it,' I should have said. I did neither. I insisted on the correct desk, they delivered it. Happy happy.

A week or so before we left for Phuket, I opened the as-yet-empty cupboard and saw some sawdusty looking stuff. Hmmmm. I wiped it out, and figured I'd check it in a week or so. I hadn't used that cupboard at all, and I hoped it was residual. It wasn't. A week or so later, when I went to look more closely, I saw a number of little bore-holes in the desk, and a good deal more sawdust. A couple days after that, we sat down to dinner with the sweet accompaniment of a healthy population of termites swirling in the light fixtures. Gross.

I called my trusty Gemini Furniture Customer Service Rep. I was pretty pleasant, but the American in me expected some actual customer service. I explained my predicament, told them I had bought the desk from them and I was hoping for some kind of guarantee since they surely stood behind the merchandise they sell. I asked them to come get the desk and provide me with a voucher so I could pick out something else.

There are three things the Singaporeans say. Can. Cannot. Lah. Can means just that; 'Yes, yes we can.' Cannot is trickier. A 'cannot' can be reversed if the reversal strategy is presented properly. Lah means 'We are done here. No more discussion.' My customer service guy said; 'Cannot. Lah.' He told me they would pick up the desk, treat it, and return it to me. This was going to cost me $50. They could say with 'fairly high certainty' that they could pesticide the heck out of the thing and kill the little buggers. If they didn't, we could do this as many times as it took. For $50 each time.

I told them to come get it and not bring it back. I wasn't paying no stinking $50. I wasn't running the risk of having termites in my other furniture or my rented house. I did not want the desk in my house ever again and I was sorely disappointed in their terrible product and lack of guarantee. Lah.

They picked it up and called about a week ago with great news. The holes I thought were termite holes were actually not termites at all. Wasn't this wonderful? I could take my desk back without the constant worry about this type of pest invasion and the liability it would bring! Happy happy once again! He seemed overjoyed for me. I asked him what the holes were. He said....'Worms.'

I'm not telling what I said...