Women and Lateral Shopping
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Every now and then you reach what I like to call a “junction of realisation” in life. The earliest one is finding out that Santa doesn’t exist because you realise that you have no chimney and there are no remnants of a red suit in your rotweiller’s teeth.

Later on in life - you realise that women cannot shop for single items of clothing. If they buy a new dress they have to get new shoes. New skirts never go with tops they already own and vice versa. But little do we men realise that this obsession extends much deeper.

Take for example when the future Mrs P and I went out and “we” decided to “pop in” to DFS the other week. I of course use “we” decided in the loosest possible way. As she began to look at the sofas on offer, she began to talk not about the sofas that we were looking at but about wallpapers and curtains and carpets that would go with each particular piece. This is when alarm bells began to ring as I realised that a sofa is merely a metaphorical skirt, which requires shoes, a new top and even a bloody hat.

DFS
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As a bloke, you have to take several things in life as generally accepted. Firstly, we have no idea about colour co-ordination. Some of you may protest, but I say this not because I believe it to be factually correct – but rather because accepting it means a much quieter life. If you want to run the gauntlet of having input on colour co-ordination within the home, then you do so at your own risk. You should be aware that all your ideas will be met with giggling and patronising pats on the head. She will continually repeat that; “He thought arctic blue would be lovely with sunset yellow” as her and her friends point in your direction and giggle.

So it is generally accepted that it is women who make the decisions as far as home furnishings go. Therefore, the DFS in Chester surprised me. As we walked through the automatic doors a professional looking salesman jumped up and walked swiftly towards us. “Hi, how are you today?” he asked. I looked at Mrs P and then him and back again several times, “me?” I asked wondering if the whole cosmic agreement had been called off. I was in a furniture shop, I was a guy, why was I being asked my opinion on anything?

I was confused, wrong footed and wild eyed at being asked to talk in a world I didn’t belong in. “I’m f-f-fine?” I finally ventured nervously. “Do you know roughly what you are looking for?” he asked still for some reason looking at me. I knew now he must be extracting the urine so I just pointed in the direction of an amused Mrs P. The place was chock full of three piece suites a sign boasted that they had around fifty sofas on display at this store. I had thought it would have been sarcastic to reply to his last question with “Yes I’m looking for a 1967 Mustang convertible”

From this point on, negotiations and discussions excluded me and one helpful male assistant came over looking at my resigned expression and asked whether I would like a brew. This innocent gesture from an uninvolved member of staff refreshed my faith and although I declined, I was pleasantly surprised at the first sign of customer care.

Range
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The salesman that was discussing things with my girl, turned into a curator and patiently walked us in an orderly fashion around the whole store. He tactfully withdrew to a safe distance every time Mrs P looked in my direction for an opinion for some kind of approval or disapproval. Not being wet behind the ears I concealed my opinions knowing full well that any admission of liking a particular sofa could later be used in evidence against me. Occasionally, when I knew I was on safe ground with a particularly hideous three-piece suite I could bring out a few choice criticisms, e.g. bright green suite “Oh my god it looks like Kermit and his entire family were beaten to death with a club on that one”. Such light criticisms, give the impression that you are taking an active part in the choice of the new suite and therefore your partners need to involve you in the process is somewhat satiated.

There is a huge range of Suites around fifty –sixty were on display over two huge floors. Each model suite was available in a wide range of styles and colours to fit whatever you were looking for. Although not a big shopper even I had to take my hat off to the range on offer.

Finally we reached the end of the tour, the salesman picked up his bottom jaw after my cheerful but graphic account of what I thought of a brown sofa we had seen. I rubbed the sore part of the back of my head where my girl had displayed her own mirth and we got back to the large reception area.

Choosing A Suite
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The DFS staffs were not pushy with us in the least, they asked politely but not forcefully whether we had a better idea as to what we were after and whether anything had jumped out at us. We had been in there half an hour and I decided to retire for a cigarette to the safety of the car park. I waved my credit card at the salesman in a wordless explanation as to my role there and Mrs P continued her dialogue.

Returning, I found that we had all agreed on a nice red/burgundy three-piece suite with wood twist decorative arms. No lazy-boy 2000 recliner with in-built beer cooler for me then. Ever patient we went back for a second look before “we” agreed that this was the one for us.

Prices
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I have to say after comparing through other store i have seen advertise in the paper and in magazines, DFS are quite cheap, they have lots of 50% sales so it is definitely worth going at a bank holiday or in January. It's a three-piece suite it can wait until the next bank holiday if it saves you £500.00 can't it.

The parts of the suites are priced helpfully individually and they range from as cheap as roughly £150.00 - £300.00 for a chair and up to £1000.00 for some of the more expensive sofas. Usually the chairs in any suite are about £100.00 cheaper than the Sofa, but since most people go for a sofa and two chairs the average price you can expect to pay is about £1200.00 for the whole all in price including extras.

Paying For It
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Basically they do three years interest free credit with nothing to pay for the first year. So you get the suite, keep it for a year and then start paying in monthly instalments over 3 years with no interest. Of course you can start paying early if you want to and reduce your monthly payments when the payment period starts and that is probably what we will do. You can of course pay it off there and then, but what’s the point when it’s interest free.

We did take the optional extra of Scotch Guard Protection, which protects against spillage, stains, etc. They even do a handy display using two pieces of material one Scotchguard protected the other not. Basically the idea is that if it is protected liquids can’t get in it straight away and you can dab the liquid off before it stains. The price depends on the suite you are buying and is worked out per seat so for example a three-seat settee and two chairs is a multiplier of five. It came to about £200.00 but is guaranteed for five years. It seemed reasonable because the additional £200.00 divided over the three years was a paltry sum anyway. Besides in five years we will probably have new curtains and therefore the suite will have to be changed.

All in all though it was a pain-free exercise made easier by the excellent staff. I know that it was a good store because usually we have to try another twelve shops before going back to the one “we” liked the best. On this occasion we didn’t need to go anywhere else because DFS negated the need to.

Finally - Delivery
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If you work, delivery can be a pain, they can only deliver a certain amount of suites in a weekend so you have a 5/7 chance of getting a weekday delivery. Ours was yesterday, but the DFS head office quite helpfully offered to ring me on the mobile and let me know a half-hour before the truck was due to get there so we could have someone there to accept delivery.

They delivered on time on the date they said without flaw. Some people have problems with delivery but i cannot fault them on this.

It’s a shame they don’t sell curtains and wallpaper, could have saved another twenty-four shopping trips to sort that out. Women, can’t live with em, can’t shop without em.