Grrrr

I am rapidly going off Cheap Flat-Packaged Furniture Co. Last year, when we bought a couple of thousands of dollars of furniture for our new house, they never told us that what we spent more than qualified us for their privilege card.

So recently, when a magazine coupon let us sign up for the privilege card for spending a tenth of the usual amount needed to qualify, I thought I would finally be able to get it.

Only to find out at the store that the amount had to be spent in the main store, not in the food outlet. A stipulation that wasn't in the small print anywhere on the coupon.

I would have let it pass, had it not been a double whammy of missing out. I really felt cheated out of the card the first time round. So as L suggested, I went on the Net, found their website, contacted them, and expressed my disappointment. Twice over.

And for good measure, added other less than happy experiences. Like the time when we bought the furniture, paid for the assembly, only to find out that delivery and assembly was done by their subcontractors, some of whom had no idea how to assemble certain items. They puzzled over the pictorial wordless instructions. I could have figured out the wordless instructions myself, only I had paid for some professional to do it more expertly. It certainly didn't inspire any confidence in their ability. In fact, one of the workmen flatly said he didn't do shelves, and left our unit half-assembled because it was beyond him. He would come back the next day, bringing along a colleague who knew how to do the job. To his credit, he did. But this was at a time when we hadn't yet moved in, so we had to make arrangements to go back to the new flat to let in the workmen.

Then this Chinese New Year, when we changed the removable couch covers, we found that covers without elastic are hard to get round furniture edges when sewn to exact measurements. It's like an irresistible force meeting an unmovable object. Not impossible but tough. L, getting irritable as he wrestled with the covers, said that he would like to invite Cheap Flat-packed Furniture Co's general manager over to personally change the covers to see how easily he could do it. So in my email to Cheap Flat-packed Furniture Co, I extended the invitation. That was last month. I guess he's not coming.