And Then There Were Three

The delivery was a little rough.  The third one came from North Carolina, found online after extensive Googling.  And then came the phone calls, the urgent emails with the warehouse in North Hollywood, the unusual requests.  "Can you send me a photo?"  "Hmm... okay."  At first, the original two were fussy about getting their photos taken.  They demanded frequent breaks.  They weren't happy with the lighting.
"Oh, get over yourselves," the SJG said, more than once.  The search for the Third Bar Stool turned stressful.  But my new best friend at the warehouse, a sweet guy with a funny foreign name, reassured me that the longed-for third bar stool was the same bar stool as the ones in the photo I emailed him.  I gave him my credit card number and hoped for the best.  Weeks went by and then he called me with the good news.  "Your stool is here!"  So I schlepped to the warehouse, at the dodgy end of NoHo, the industrial section, where streets and driveways converge, and the minute I saw the third stool, my heart dropped.  "It's higher than my stools," I told the sweet guy with the funny foreign name.  Tears came to his eyes.  "No, it's the same."  I sat down on it.  "It's definitely higher."  I showed him the photographic proof.  "No, it's the same," he insisted.  "I'm pretty sure it's higher."  He took out the catalogue and showed me the stool I'd ordered.  "See?  The same."  "I'm pretty sure it's higher, " I said, as he wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in my backseat.  "Call me when you get home.  I want to know if it's the same."  On the ride home, I started to question myself.  Maybe the new stool was the same as the other stools.  But my gut told me no, it was higher.  Hubby greeted me in the garage.  "Does this look the same to you?"  "Yeah, it's the same stool."  "I think it's a little higher."  In the kitchen, my suspicions were confirmed.  I called my new friend.  "It's a little higher," I told him.  "Oh, no.  I'm so sorry."  By now, hubby had started sawing through the metal legs.  "It's okay, my husband is going to make it the right height."  And he did.  It took a while, there was a lot of "oh, @#$%!"s, a lot of ear-piercing shrieks from the new stool. And, in the end, a happy SJG.  A Jewish man who saws through steel?  I think I'll keep him.