People have tried to tell me that some of the most stressful purchases in my life would be the “obvious” big ticket items. Car, house, wife, boat, etc. Not that you’d purchase your wife, of course – that would make life far too easy – but buying an engagement ring would be stressful… I thought the buying was easy – I’m fairly knowledgable about diamonds, oddly enough – but I certainly would have spent less money and time on it, if I knew I’d lose 20% of the original price when I had to return the fiancee ring.

While buying the home is stressful, it’s a long process, so the stress ebbs and flows… buying home improvements to said home is a freakin’ nightmare, given my recent attempt to buy a set of custom blinds.

I have 24 blind-able surfaces in my home. All of the window blinds have dirty, cream colored, bent to shit metal horizontal blinds now. In their defense, they are the original blinds from over 15 years ago. There’s also a set of vertical blinds over the back door which are in OK shape – those are vinyl – but the track on that is hosed. So they are all due for replacement.

Having tried to buy a new set, I know why they’re still the originals – who in their right mind would do this on purpose?

JCPenney’s has a sale on blinds. I wander in. I haven’t taken window measurements or anything – I even got the first count of windows wrong, but who cares? – and catch attitude for this from the salesperson for this lack of data. I’m looking for a ballpark number over here… $50 a window? $150 a window? Yes, I have some windows that are normal size – which got a “There are no normal sized windows!” from the salesperson – and others that are longer and wider than normal. Can’t get an estimate. Gotta get measurements. Oh, and when you measure, take three different measurements for width and height, because that’s important. Can’t proceed without them.

My “high” windows require a 10′ ladder to reach. I have sprained two ankles, dislocated one knee cap, hurt the other knee recently in the gym, and have had an irked shoulder for the last year, all due to sports (hah!) or home improvement injuries. Count the odds of me getting a ladder and trying this on my own. Oddjack will tell you it’s 0:0.

Oh, look, they have a measuring service that can measure for me. OK, fine, that’s not free, but aight. After all the JCP sale is 60% off + 15% off. Gotta be a good price. [stop laughing at me for almost believing this!] And if I have someone else measure I’m not on the hook for fuckin’ up the numbers. Sweet.

$76 later, I have a sheet of measurements. $76 and a few ounces of bile, that is. I told them “I have to be back to work by 1” and the people show up at 12:50. No ladder either. No triple measurements. Just two people and a tape measure. Ah, well, I’m not on the hook for that… Still irked that I was forced to be late for work, though.

While they’re there, I ask, “can I get an estimate on the install, do you think?” ‘Oh, we can’t do that.’ Me: “Er, you can’t guestimate a price?” ‘Nope.’ “OK. Well, is it like $5 a window?” ‘*laugh* it’ll be more than that!’ “Less than $200 a window?” ‘Um, yeah.’ “Sounds like you can estimate something, eh?” ‘…’

Meanwhile, since I can’t get an estimate on that, I discover Home Depot is also having a sale. More on that later.

So now that I got my measurements, I head back over to JCP at 10:30, giving up my lunch hour to beat any crowd that could be there. 30 minutes later I still haven’t to talk with my salesperson – same one! – because some twit of a woman wants her blinds to match a tampon in color and fabric feel or some shit. I finally have enough and opt to use an East Coast Tactic – the one where you act like a pissed off dick and feel justified to do so – and got her attention for a minute. While I was waiting for her to talk to me, I worked some numbers with some pricing sheets I found… Freakin $2600 based on the models we looked at the first go around! And I still have no idea for installation costs.

I balked.

I told the salesperson – who incidentally tried to tell me that I shouldn’t get white blinds and if I did I had to get cloth; I told her they were going to be white b/c it matches the trim and while I know the difference between flat white, winter white, navajo white, and eggshell, I’m still a guy and there’s no way I’m getting cloth (harder to keep clean and I know that they’re more expensive!) – that I can’t do what I want to with the current pricing. I’ll fax over her my measurements and she can find a cheaper solution. She frowned at me, and told me she’d get back to me.

Yesterday, I got two different calls from her, both complaining about the quality of my cell phone, and to finally tell me it would be $2000 with tax, but without any installation numbers. I called the installation company today: “Oh, I don’t know that we can do an estimate” [insert a Give-It-Me-Now episode here] “we’ll call you back with one!”

Yesterday, however, I also popped into Home Depot. Where a friendly and helpful young woman gave me a price sheet to look over. Some comments on materials, after I asked her for input. Some explination on why my larger windows would be more to work with. And an estimation sheet for installations. Here’s the kicker: I left my measurements at home by mistake and we covered all of this ground without them.

But wait – there’s more: Home Depot, if I’ve done the math correctly, has come in $300 under what JCP would be, just for supplies. I still have to talk to Depot about installation, and there could be some issues there… they’re notorious for giving you a “$25 to install” and then attack you with “oh, and $75 to remove any old blinds – did we forget that?” surcharges… That’s a coming question, but even if they do, they’ll probably be able to give me an amount right there.

Either way, it’s becoming a major issue… Guess I should wait on doing anything else to the place, like getting a new refridgerator or something. Buying the place shoulda been the hard part – who could have guessed I woulda had to fight to give a company money? Home “improvement” my ass…

I should just hand sheets up over all the windows and call it good.