How to Buy a Changing Table

1. Fall in love with and marry someone equally as opinionated and stubborn as you so that even after you've looked at every changing table known to man in a store and online, you still don't agree on anything!

2. Enlist your sister for help in finding a changing table because you're so tired of looking at them and are almost to the point of deciding the baby's diaper can be changed on the floor.

3. Open the first email your sister sends, look at the changing table and both declare in unison, "Oooooo! That's the one." Stare at each other in disbelief because you just agreed on something.

4. Debate for days about the correct color to choose that will match the crib you also ordered online. Decide on a color. Begin to place the changing table order online.

5. Find out the changing table cannot be shipped regularly due to its weight and can only be delivered by truck for a fee of $184, bringing the changing table to a grand total of $609. Declare in unison "No, way, Jose!"

6. Decide there's no way we will pay that much money for a changing table. Feel bummed for a few hours that something we actually agreed on is not going to work out. Make a decision to do something about it. Place a call to customer service.

7. Speak to a very nice, helpful lady who tries her darndest to find a way around the $184 delivery fee, because she also agrees it is ludicrous. Apologizes when she can't, but is able to find a different item number for the exact same changing table at the outlet store, which reduces the price by $100. Feel like we're making progress.

8. Think about it for a day or two and decide to email customer service to explain situation and find out if a supervisor or someone in charge could approve a different method of delivery.

9. Receive an email from customer service explaining we could call a catalog desk (and there is one in our town!) and get special permission to have it delivered there. Will still have to pay shipping but will greatly reduce the $184 truck delivery fee. Tells me to get permission, then call and place the order through customer service.

10. Call the local catalog desk. Explain situation to lady who answers the phone who also agrees truck delivery fee is ludicrous. Says, of course, it is OK to have the table delivered there, because they get baby furniture in all the time.

11. Call customer service to place order. Lady who answers the phone tells me in all of her years of working there (over a decade, she reminds me), she has never heard of a truck delivery fee being waived. Says she will have to check with her supervisor. Wait forever for supervisor to make a decision. Supervisor says they can't waive that fee, but I should place my order directly with the local catalog desk to have proof they have given me permission. Tells me it would be in my best interest to take my email with me.

12. Go to local catalog desk. Explain the whole story to the sweetest lady ever who, yet again, agrees the delivery fee is ludicrous. Says of course she will place the order. Calls to place the order and speaks to yet another person who says they cannot waive the delivery fee. They also talk with their supervisor who tells sweetest lady ever no. I ask for the phone and explain to supervisor two customer service reps have told me this CAN be done. She suggests we directly call the warehouse to place the order.

13. Sweetest lady ever calls warehouse and is FINALLY able to place the order plus score us FREE shipping!!! Table to arrive in 6-8 days, and I seriously consider kissing her feet before we leave the store.

14. Come home feeling completely victorious and within 5 minutes FedEx arrives to deliver our crib. Open the box, look at each other, and say in unison, "This color doesn't match the changing table."

15. Call back sweetest lady ever, beg her not to kill me, and ask her to call warehouse again to change the color of table we just ordered. Sweetest lady ever doesn't act bothered at all, and says she will be glad to change the color for us.

16. Don't hear anything back from sweetest lady ever so assume everything is OK. Phone rings almost an hour later. Sweetest lady ever says it took her FOREVER to get it changed and that she feels like she's been to Washington and back. But, it is DONE, it is ORDERED, and we paid almost $300 LESS than the original $609 it looked like we were going to have to pay for the table.

17. Husband suggests we should send sweetest lady ever an Edible Arrangement or something. This sends me into fits of giggles, which I'm not really sure is because his statement was so funny, or because my brain is so fried from this whole experience.