It almost fit
Sometimes, you can’t see the detail. Even if the detail is right there, in front of you, with a price tag attached to reassure you of the fair market value. We went to the store. We bought a new stove. The truck came, delivered the new one and took the old one away. And it didn’t fit.
There are standards in the industry. The team that builds your cupboards respect them. The people that write up product sheets list them. The salesman, bless his right to a reasonable commission, spouts them, chapter and verse. It’s a religion. A kitchen stove shall fit into the thirty inch bay. Trust us.
Until you are confronted with a detail. The stove fits. The control panel doesn’t, on certain models from GE. By this much (fill in your favourite fraction of an inch/centimeter/thumb). The two delivery guys were, for lack of a better word, laconic. “You may have to cut the cupboard to make it fit”. And without further ado, off to the next address on the list.
So, we looked. We measured. We tried to imagine the damage I could inflict with my famous jigsaw. And we jumped in the car and returned to the store.
The salesman (not the same one, although the suits tend to camouflage them) assured us that we could exchange for something more fitting. Pardon the pun, I’m hungry. And with our newly heightened powers of observation, it was noted that the model currently sitting in the middle of our kitchen was the only one that wouldn’t fit into the preordained space.
On our second go around, there was a slight upsell. The new stove, from LG, will be better than the old new stove. And we’ll have to eat sandwiches for 48 hours, the time to reschedule the lads with the tote strap and the big truck.
