should have seen this coming

I believe many folks out there are well familiar with my ongoing saga of furniture in a box. The cliff notes version:

Approximately 86.7 percent of the furniture in a box I buy (and that's a lot, as most of my furniture came from a box) has some damaged part. The best examples have been the shelves (top shelf completely split down the middle) and dining table (giant crack in the tabletop) I bought from World Market. Bed, Bath & Beyond has also put forth its share of damaged bits.

It is to the point where now if I'm planning to buy furniture in a box, I make sure I have enough time to get the furniture, bring it home, figure out the damaged part, and then take it back for a new one. If there's a stack of folding shelves at Bed, Bath & Beyond, I know without a doubt that I will grab the box with the damaged ones (I have four sets of shelves from there...they rock, if you can find a non-nicked set).

So cut to last week, when I asked my parents to help me get the new desk and hutch I'd been eyeing at Target while they were there, thusly saving me much struggling up the stairs with my dolly.

My dad, in total dad awesomeness, carried both things up the stairs and set them up against the wall in my living room, since, minor detail, I had not yet gotten rid of the old desk. I'd had it up on craigslist for a couple weeks and a couple people seemed interested, so I figured it would sell. Come Saturday, the interested people had not gotten back to me, so I posted signs around my apartment complex. I got a call back within 3 hours (Paper 1, Internet 0) and they took the desk out today (not without its own drama...when they pulled the desk out, they also basically pulled it apart, and took it to their apartment in peices to be reassembled).

Now, I believe there are two pieces of furniture I've ever bought that did not have a damaged part. One was from, oddly, Value City, and the other was my entertainment center from Target. One of those four sets of shelves from Bed, Bath & Beyond might have also been okay...can't remember. So I figured perhaps my broken furniture in a box jinx would be broken. Surely the Great And Powerful Target knows how to package furniture such that it doesn't get busted. Awhile back I had vowed not to buy any more furniture from a box, but I don't like and really can't afford furniture store furniture, and come on, this was Target.

So you can see where this is going. I took the desk box into the room, pulled out all the peices, and the TOP OF THE FREAKING DESK is nicked. It was pretty obvious it was going to be, too, since the protective wrapping had shifted off of it in that spot.

So this is why I am blogging and not assembling a desk. The only good thing is that Target has a replacement parts program thingy, so I emailed that and asked for a new desk top, and with any luck will not have to lug the whole desk back to the store.

But here's my question. Why on earth can't they wrap this shit up better? Like, two layers of cellophane might have done it. One layer, well taped, might have even done it. This isn't like the World Market shelves or table, which had clearly been punted by something large somewhere between Thailand and here. So now, instead, Target is going to have to ship me a new desktop.

At least now I guess I can spend my afternoon by the pool as I originally planned. Heh.