THE PURCHASE
10.3.21

When in Rome 2/21


In all fairness, you would want a new couch too! The house was left completely furnished (Almost too much. They literally left everything. Which I guess – our bad for not being more specific, but really shame on the realtor for not ensuring all their “crap” wasn’t removed. Like every drawer had stuff. Even the bar of old soap was left. You’ll see it in one of the photos. YUCK. That’s kinda nasty. Ok, time to focus on the positive…Back to IKEA. There was no sofa in the house. You got to sit right! There were 17 kitchen chairs, 10 beds, 25 pots & pans, 7 brooms, a broken hibachi grill (left in the kitchen) a very ugly red purse and a creepy old doll… which I almost left in Kailee’s room (to name a few items).

Mike & I (and our handy dandy google maps) headed back to Rome. It’s about a 50 min ride. Not bad at all. We find IKEA and I’m in my glory! Mike was too after 3 – .50 hotdogs LOL. God help me! We purposely rented a larger wagon style car to get the couch to the house. The rental for a week was $131.00 – delivery alone would have been $100.00. I feel victory! Until of course my loveseat wasn’t in stock. But the $100.00 upgraded fabric one was… perfect. Sold to the Americans who have no clue what to do next. We managed to get all of our stuff, some new bedspreads for the main beds (there are 10 in all) lucky for me the $9.00 bedspreads were my 1st choice! Some other odds & ends, 2 new wicker light fixtures for the dining/living area…to replace the 2 black gothic existing lights. Let’s pray Mike can do Italian electricity. …a coffee table, no room for Swedish meatballs…. and we‘re done!

We are excited on our way back to at least get the living area sorted out. In reality, I was excited to start decorating AROUND the crap. I don’t care, a cute cafe curtain can cover the hibachi right?! Mind you, when we arrived all 5 recycling bins, the broken hibachi grill & miscellaneous sh*t was left. Yes, I have pictures to show. We kept telling each other ~ think if they didn’t leave the beds. That expense alone would be more than the cost of the house itself! Stop complaining. Smile, we’re in Italy! We bought a flipping house in Italy. We make our way back like 2 dingbats unaware of the situation we’re about to get ourselves into. Mental imagine- I am holding the coffee table that has 2 wicker lights in it, on my lap the whole way home. See photo. Mike had to shut me in to squish me closed. Our street is about 10’ wide, and our car can only fit down a portion of it. So, we decide I will wave Mike down as far as he can fit, and then we will push the massive ikea loveseat box the rest of the way. Sounds good right? Ok, clarification- Mike will push & pull. I am recovering from an ankle injury that I have to be extra careful on these cobblestone streets. And I suffer from a vascular disease that my shoulders, arms and hands don’t really work so well. Poor Mike, he’ll love the loveseat though I plan on having his wine ready for him lol.
I get out of the car, put my coffee table & lights apparently by the car… Mike starts backing up ….a very kind women comes running down her stairs, waving her arms saying “No no no”. She then motions to me arms crossed and her eyes closed …what is she saying? What is this lady trying to tell me? Omg where’s my phone to google translate! For the love of God, Mary & Joseph and ALL the angels & saints what is she saying to me?!?!?! OH, she’s trying to tell me someone died?! That would explain the hearse at the top of the village. We honestly saw one, thought nothing of it. Continued on our merry way… I’m excited to decorate. Mike is excited to get the hell out of the car…. What we didn’t know is Mike & Kerri are now almost part of a funeral procession 👀. Yup, Mike puts it in drive and gets the heck out of dodge. We watch at least 50 townspeople pass, the priest and 6 men carrying a wooden casket overhead up our winding narrow street to the hearse. See about 1/2 way down the main road happens to be the church. We hide in our rental, the big Ikea box sticking out doesn’t give us away. Disaster averted. Can you imagine if that women didn’t tell us and Mike was 1/2 way down Via Regina Elena and blocked the funeral with our IKEA couch box… I can‘t. I actually can. This is Mike & Kerri were talking about.
God rest their soul. But God, please guide us from now on…. not to get kicked out of our new village. We apologize in advance for everything we’re about to do. 

At this point Mike is now backing up the car, hatch open & box sticking out. Church bells are starting to ring. I’m beginning to feel overwhelmed. He gets it as far as he can, unloads it and me with 2 HUGE ikea bags (overflowing with pillows, curtains and rugs) he goes and parks and comes back to push the box the rest of the way. I decide my bf Kim must be part of this scene, so I FaceTime her. But now I’m starting to laugh quickly I begin crying back to laughing…all while dropping ikea pillows out of my bag, which I accidentally kept kicking down the street every time I bend over to pick them up…Looking back I know I had 1/2 a nervous breakdown on ft with Kim. When will the other 1/2 happen? Or should I say how long until it happens. We made it. We get the couch in, it looks beautiful and I’m happy and content… right? For the night. What could possibly go wrong from here? Where is the coffee table & lights? Oh my flipping God…. Mike thought I had them, I thought he had them. Omg… we left them where the car is parked…back up Via Regina Elena …. stay tuned.

What else could go wrong?

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?! It doesn’t matter, we bought a flipping house in Italy.
The best part is the church bells ringing 🔔 .

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