how to (not) buy a glider chair for the nursery

Go to local mid-size baby gear emporium where staff is a little overly attentive and inexplicably annoying. Sit in three of the six chairs available on the floor and determine that they all make your lower back hurt. Ask about this. Have obsequious salesperson seat you in fourth chair, which has lumbar support. Decide you must have this glider, but not from these annoying people in their fluorescently lit and unappealingly appointed shop.

Same day, go to smaller, charming, neighborhood baby gear shop. Notice they have same brand of gliders. Don’t sit in any of them but make mental note to come back as this is also your first day stroller shopping and you’re already overwhelmed.

The following weekend, on a day when you’ve already gone to the Farmers’ Market, and done extensive paint shopping (for your new office, and your old office — a.k.a. the nursery-to-be) — make sure it’s a Saturday — drive 45 minutes to the largest baby-gear emporium in the area that isn’t a chain store. Do this in the late afternoon, around the time that you usually meditate or nap.

Meditate in the parking lot, after fighting with husband about whether or not to meditate in the parking lot. Climb over the front seat to the back halfway through meditation because the setting sun is hitting you square on the face. Mentally note that this maneuver will soon be physically impossible.

Once inside, wait 20 minutes next to bathroom because you (always) have to go, and someone is in there making a model of the Eiffel Tower out of her baby’s used diapers. Find out moments before she finishes and exits the stall that there was another bathroom somewhere else in the store.

Spend about 30 minutes shopping for strollers first. Next, wander through furniture room and nearly faint from prices of hip mod style “cribs” — á la MTV.

Enter the glider room.

Try to look at the 40 chairs lined up along the center of the room, two rows, pairs of gliders set back-to-back. Two mid-sized children are running back and forth in between all of the gliders, pushing them so they sway like ocean waves in a storm, hitting the swivel ones with gleeful shrieks so that they twist against the sway.

You are the pirate. You attempt to sail these seas while a tall man in polo shirt and chino shorts, presumably father of these cheeky moppets, talks on his Blackberry. “Yeah, is she there? Okay, pretend you’re not talking to me… So is there anything I can REALLY get for you here? Other than that crap you put on the registry? We want to get you something good, man. How about that Bugaboo stroller? No? Are you sure? Come on.”

Saleswoman looks at you, pregnant and facing the chairs, and assumes the kids are yours.

Think evil thoughts about the kids. Decide you are going to be a terrible mother. Leave store.

Search gliders on Target.com. Discover that these are same brand as the one you like, the fancy Canadian brand. Call around until you find a local Target that says they have the chairs in-store. Next weekend, go to that store. Discover they have ONE chair, the cheapest model. You can’t try it out because it is bolted to a shelf, four feet above the ground.

Go back to small neighborhood baby gear store, the one with the nice salespeople. Try out two of the six gliders there. Briefly. Decide — with husband — that you must have the new “Grande” model (bigger, better, faster, more) with all the bells and whistles (recline, swivel, multi-position lock). Learn that this is a 911-130.

Go back to annoying mid-size baby gear store. Find out other chair you liked, while smaller, is the 978-130 with lumbar support back cushion (special order).

Call the glider company, in CANADA, to find out which model numbers are carried on Target.com (because maybe if you register for this, someone will buy it for you — plus they have that great return policy). They don’t know. Call one phone number, and then another, as you are directed to do by various helpful sales representatives, many with quebecois accents, until you get ahold of a woman who knows something. She won’t give you model numbers though. She says these models are exclusively sold at Target.

Still, together, you and she go through the Target.com descriptions over the phone. You point out to her the inaccuracies of each description. (This says brown, but the chair in the picture is green, so which color would arrive on my doorstep? This says the chair swivels, but the picture is clearly of a stationary base…)

Let another week pass.

Go back to small cute neighborhood shop to re-try Grande chair and make a decision. Discover that floor model has been sold. New one won’t arrive for another 3-4 weeks. Sit in other chairs. Grab pile of fabric swatches while sitting in glider you won’t buy. Pick out three fabrics you like that husband has not seen or approved of because you don’t want microfiber anymore now that you realize it is polyester impregnated with plastic by some small percentage. Pick three fabric swatches you like that are 100% cotton.

Talk to friend who has a glider. Learn that there is a glider EMPORIUM in a nearby town. Look up website. Family-owned, friendly, all models of the brand you like in-stock, huge selection of upholstery fabrics available. You want to go to this store. You are ready to pull the trigger on this decision. Your parents are in town and want to HELP you purchase this glider.

But it’s Sunday. The store is closed on Sundays.

* * *

Update: Here’s a post about the chair we did finally buy.