I've been hunting for a writing desk to replace the shaky, 20-dollar Wal-Mart folding table I have now. In pursuit of this desk, I've been in just about every Gainesville furniture store in the last three days. And to be honest, they make me quake like a little child. I'm never going in a furniture store again.
First of all, they're weirdly lit. Second, they're deathly still. Except for the occasional plash of fountains or strange lite jazz. They are deserted -- or so you think, until a wraithlike salesperson pops out from behind a tacky baroque bedframe and glimmers at you with his orblike eyes.
Thirdly, they bear no connection to the world outside their doors. You step from a hot, bright, noisy street into a funereal chill and silence. You wander rows and rows of overwrought, ugly, dark furniture. You wonder: How do these people make a living? Who buys this stuff?
At most there will be one overweight woman trying out a secondhand beige leather couch, bouncing up and down in that room of vacancy.
And you run.
