Who Are They Trying To Kid?

Normally, I comfy myself into one of my favorite spots in our new house, the front sofa, and enjoy a slow perusal through the Restoration Hardware catalog when it comes in the mail. I have an undeniable penchant for clean lines, and the catalog is pure eye candy for me. For the last few months, though, you would have found me standing outside our community mailbox station, eagerly rifling through a freshly arrived edition or thumbing it as I walked back home, one eyeball on the catalog and the other on the sidewalk, so as not to be embarrassed by an unscheduled splatting of myself in front of the neighbors, most of whom I haven't met.

There's a chandelier in there that they've advertised for some months, and being the frugal wife that I am, I've kept my eye on it for the inevitable sale. It's perfect. I want it. I want it to replace the baroque-twirly atrocity hanging in the dining room right now. I think these things came with these homes, because I've spotted them in other houses sporting this floor plan. It's supposed to be on the Italian side of things, but it just doesn't suit us (not a clean line to be found amongst the swirls and curliques), and besides, the spiders are having a hay-day trapezing from one arm of it to the other while I'm not looking, making it seem much more a Halloween prop than something that should grace our dinner foodstuffs with light (which it does poorly, by the way). At any rate, I've been very patient in waiting for The Perfect Chandelier to come down in price.

I've taken to checking the website on a weekly basis, rather than waiting for the catalog in the mail. Two weeks ago, my eyebrows bolted well up under my hairline upon espying that my beloved chandelier had gone UP in price by $50. What's this now? Usually, the fall brings about a clearance fever and instead they're jacking things UP? What sort of marketing ploy is this, particularly given the state of the economy? Pretty uppity, if you ask me. I'm sorry, but unless the thing folds my laundry for me and mows the lawn for Clay, NO chandelier of this style is worth the dollar figure they slapped on that puppy. I checked again a week later; fathom this.......it's on SALE! And the price DROPS by $100! Oh, I see now. So, this way, they can list the inflated price, cross it off with an elegantly thin, crisp, diagonal red line and declare the sale price at a riveting, hurry-up-and-buy-it $100 savings, which is still too much for as simple of a lamp that it is. Tricksy, tricksy, they are. I want a TRUE $100 markdown. In fact, I think as a reward for my patience, I'd be MOST satisfied fetching it AT COST. I think I need to write a letter. Blogging this is just not going to cut it.

I'm positive this is a marketing strategy used by every company in America, but for me, watching and waiting and observing the duping of the public made me a little ill. It's just not nice to lie, ok? Stop it. And give me my chandelier.