Sleeping on it, watching tv, studying, battling fevers year after year. Crumbs and spills, lost remote controls and tiny toys and keys, Christmases and birthdays - all in the life of our beloved sofa. But alas there comes a time when even the sofa you grow up on must move on and out... So after years of juggling the thought of a new sofa we started sofa hunting... we knew we needed something comfortable but sturdy, definitely hard wearing since we are going to use it and not look at it.
Scene 1.
Choosing the Maltese product. Since we joined the EU, the market has been flooded with choice in furniture and household goods. Most Maltese furniture makers have suffered a great deal in trying to keep up with the competition. I have always made it a point and prided myself in buying Maltese products as far as possible. Buying a sofa was one of them. Me and mum headed to a small workshop in Qormi, guaranteed by good sources to produce high quality and made to measure sofas. The idea delighted us. We were welcomed into the little workshop shown some specimen and booked a new sofa. The next day, the owner and manufacturer dutifully turned up home to measure the place for the sofa and pocketing a hefty deposit sped away to supposedly start the sofa set, promising us it wouldn't take more than 3 weeks. We had ourselves a deal- what better customer care than the manufacturer and owner doing all this?
Scene 2.
Three weeks passed. We phoned the guy up and accepted the fact that he was sick and had not finished it. After all, this was not a factory but depended on him and his workman ( family). He again promised us it would be ready in a week...
Three weeks after the deadline...We phone again - He has not started working on the sofa set yet ! Give me another 2 weeks he says. Another week passes by - The guy phones up telling us he is not going to manage to do the sofa and that he will give us back our deposit. ( in the meantime, we had an empty living room since we had already given our old and trusted sofa to a local charity, thinking our sofa was about to arrive).
Scene 3.
Disappointed we scour the stores for a sofa set. The selection is incredible, sizes, styles, colours, fabrics and most of all prices. We finally decide on a comfortable leather 3 seater and armchair which open inspection was designed in Italy, manufactured somewhere in Asia, re shipped to Europe and finally reached its destination. Waiting time? 2 weeks.
Final Scene
We're sitting on our new sofa and i cannot but help imagine where this sofa has been. I guess the sofa though 'new' is a seasoned traveller. Welcome international sofa, may you share as many memories as our last ( made in Malta) sofa did with us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
this is so funny, i've just had dinner with my folk, and the discussion or rather the argument, was when are we going to change the sofa. i don't have the same memories of the sofa as you do, we don't use it much. ma just wants a new one to adorn the house, the old man can't bear it that he has to give away a sofa he paid for about lm200 when he was still on lm10/week. and that in his own words, is still 'in good condition'. :)
hah 'good condition' i like that. spoken by a true man :) Why change something which is still good and can serve you a couple more years?
( Even though its starting to sag and squeak) Men can be sentimental about things too :P
Post a Comment