Eureka! I finally found it. Or so I thought.
Decorating my new home in coastal navy and white, I was looking for some artwork large enough to hold its own over a behemoth-sized credenza I had recently purchased. I went to a highly recommended consignment store, and there on the wall I spotted it. The giclee depicted a perfectly detailed sea coral – the requisite navy and white, and yes, it was big, so big it barely fit in my car.
Pleased with my purchase, I managed to wiggle it out of my sedan when I got home, and proudly perched it atop Mount Credenza to see how it looked.
Something about it wasn’t quite right.
The piece should have worked. I mean it ticked all the boxes. Navy and blue, check. Coastal, check. Big, check. But, there was something about it that seemed, well, sad. Just sad. For the life of me, I couldn’t put my finger on why or how this particular painting that was so appealing at first had betrayed me in just a coupla hours.
So I just stared at the damn thing.
Why don’t I like you? I kept mulling and mulling it over in my head. It just stared back at me, offering no explanation.
Then I called my father. To be clear, I actually called The First Lady, my name for Dad’s girlfriend. Unlike Pops, she has an iPhone, and I thought I’d FaceTime them to get their opinion of this… mystery.
Not wanting to influence their response, I played it straight. “So, I went shopping today and finally found something to go over the chest. What do you guys think?”
I flipped the view from my face to the artwork. Silence. Finally, The First Lady (ever the diplomat) offered, “Well, it really has all the colors you want.. let me show it to your father.”
I looked at the clock. 6:15 pm. I knew by then, Dad would have already sunk his nightly happy-hour Manhattan, which meant I’d get his real, unabridged opinion. I felt my hands and lower orifices clench.
He then uttered three words that explained it all, that demystified what was staring back at me. The simple explanation that must have been lurking in my subconscious the entire time: “Looks like Coronavirus.”
An hour later, after my Jenga-like maneuvers to fit the humongous framed spore back into my car, I learned the consignment store didn’t take returns. They did however allow me to re-consign it.
My father has since told me how terrible he felt about blurting out his candid appraisal, but I assured him that instead of offending me, he helped unlock the code on a safe I couldn’t quite crack. So it’s back to the drawing board. I’ve decided to leave the wall blank until I see the perfect piece, or until they come up with a vaccine.
Kelly Craig is a 30-year television news anchor who is still wondering how she fooled ’em this long. She lives in her new home in Naples, Florida where she is navigating the pitfalls of interior design.
