Grown-up furniture

©2013 Lydia Hinshaw

Now we can have meals in style

 ORMOND BEACH, FL -- Once upon a time I donated my dinette set to AmVets. It was old and tired, and I was sick of it.  I figured I'd buy a new one when I found something I liked.
 That was sometime in the early 90s.  Since then, Prince Charming and I have depended on the coffee table or porch furniture or barstools or simply standing at the counter to eat.  In 1995, we moved to a new house, still intending to pick out a table and chairs at some point.
 In 2005 I retired from my career job and a year later the Prince retired from his.  Oops!  No room in our budget for furniture.
 In 2010, our summer house-sitters became frustrated with our plastic patio table that wobbled under our faux chandelier.  They went to a thrift store and bought the cheapest, ugliest table and two chairs they could find. They graciously left this stuff behind when they went home to Ohio. One of those chairs broke a while back, but we kept using the other.  The table became a table for one.
 At some point last week we decided we needed grown-up furniture. Who knows why.  Perhaps we were just sick of looking at the ugly table and chair. Or embarrassed to show this summer's house-sitter that we're still living like college students.
 So Saturday morning we scouted a few thrift stores, and consignment shops and discovered several possibilities.  We finally went for a rattan set with a glass table-top, which is what I have had in mind since I donated that old, tired dinette set 20 years ago.  We were able get the whole works in the van, and thus avoided delivery charges.
 The old table and chair went out to the street, and some passer-by had claimed the table within two hours.  The chair is still homeless and may last until garbage day Monday.
 So far, we are pleased, not least because Murphy the cat has not yet interrupted a meal by jumping up on the table.  Since she can see right through the glass table-top, she doesn't realize it's there.  Maybe she will figure it out.
 And maybe we can have guests over for dinner someday.