Recently, when I was feeling a lot like a flea-market diva, I spotted an area rug that I knew I couldn't live without. Only I wasn't shopping in a flea market; rather, I was digging through the valuables my boyfriend had inherited from his dad's stash of "I'm remodeling, and these things aren't part of the new plan." I say I spotted it, because I truly did: I saw maybe a 2' x 3' swatch of it, but was sold on the colors immediately. I told my boyfriend how much I loved it, and he said something like, "you know, that rug cost $7,000." I thought I might no less be the Queen of England if I had that rug in my apartment, so I asked him if I could maybe take it off his hands. And then he suggested we get a better look at it. We had to take it outside so that we could unroll it...
That's when the tiny swatch of a rug with colors I admired became something bigger: a 20' x 20' wool rug with scenes of monkeys playing musical instruments all over it (of course, those measurements aren't exact - it might be bigger, and it might technically be measured in square feet). I stared down at it and did a poor job pretending I was still really, really interested in it. I thought the monkeys might grow on me. Perhaps I would name each of them and dance over them as they played scary carnival music with their flutes, trumpets, and cymbals.
My fake interest worked so well that my boyfriend gladly gave me the rug (I think he thought I was now doing him a favor). I tried the look of the $7,000 rug in my apartment, but no room I had was large enough for the circus and accompanying orchestra. I rolled it up and now it's in my utility closet, with a $4 bucket and $3 mop, a broken window pane, and my vacuum cleaner. And the moths that are surviving in it are getting quite a bargain.
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