The Newlywed Glow

J and I had a gigantic blowout last night and this morning over a piece of furniture.

But not just any piece of furniture. Our brand new Crate & Barrel Harmony Media Console:



It is beautiful. It is expensive. It was a major pain in the ass to find, purchase, bring home, and install. And now, 4 hours after the long awaited homecoming, it is scratched. And my wife and I are not speaking.

It all started when we moved in together, almost three years ago, and she remarked that my floor-stand speakers had to go. They were huge and unsightly. Also, my TV stand was "bacheloresque." I didn't agree, but I did agree to getting a new one someday. So last week we were cruising Crate and Barrel and we came upon this lovely piece of walnut with sliding Chinese doors and a truly shocking price tag. But it was exactly what we were looking for, and we had some wedding funds left over.

We asked the guy at the counter if it was in stock. It was, so we decided to rent a Zipcar and bring it home. I reserved the car, picked it up, and got a call from J saying the guy was mixed up and that it wasn't actually in stock. We decided to take the car for a joyride anyway, since we had it for an hour and a half. It took us 45 minutes to get out of Manhattan, at which point it was time to return the car. Ridiculous. So we returned the car and decided to have it delivered.

After a series of phone calls spanning three days, we found that the delivery charge was $70 and J decided she'd go into work late one day to wait for delivery. But they couldn't promise us a delivery time, so I decided to have it delivered a few days later when I'd be working from home. Then my buddy Kevin offered to help us pick it up. Awesome.

So we picked it up, barely, in his tiny VW Golf, me scrunched up in front, and brought all 86 pounds of it home last night up three flights of stairs in one piece. Ecstasy.

I set about hooking up all of my various electronics with full digital 7.1 surround sound, over 175 feet of speaker wire and cable going every which way. J was not amused by the sheer mass of wires required for the job, and she was convinced there was a better way. Comparing the process to open heart surgery, I asked her to back off. She wouldn't. Things escalated.

Four hours later, everything was hooked up and we had to move our TV onto the new stand. The damn thing was so heavy that despite J's careful application of cardboard feet to the bottom, we managed to gently scrape it across the front of our beloved new dovetailed work of beauty. Neither one of us noticed, but J immediately tried to move my carefully placed front speakers and I freaked. She was sick of not being involved, so she left the room. That's when I noticed our fresh dents on the front. I freaked again. She was in the other room and declined to inspect the damage. We went to bed.

This morning, I decided that it was no big deal. People die every day, awful natural disasters strike, teenagers fail to make friends. Our problems were minor. But J did not share my optimism. We fought again. She blamed me for the scratches, I pointed out that there was a scratch on her end too, she said mine was worse, and I dropped the F bomb and walked out.

And that's where we are. I am now accepting advice and tips on the following:

1. making up
2. wiring speakers without using wire
3. repairing scratched furniture
4. marriage

Anyone?