I bought one. I buh-buh-buh-bought one.  The item in question being a new rug woven somewhere in the Eastern hemisphere.  On May Day, temporarily flush after an unexpected financial windfall earned through cat-sitting for a friend, I went into the Medallion Rug Gallery in downtown Palo Alto  and walked out with a new rug. I’m still in mild shock from this Mad-Money plunge.  

            But how to fight a passion encoded  in my DNA? Late in the 1960’s and early in their marriage, my father and step-mother went to a rug auction in San Francisco, and came home with the back seat of their VW bug stuffed with the ten large rugs they had bought that day.  

            “Each one was more beautiful than the last,” Glenna, my step-mother, sighed.  “We just couldn’t leave the auction hall without them.”  Forty years later, most of those auction rugs still grace the floors at their house.  But their acquisition of beautiful rugs did not end with that trip to the auction by any means. I have benefitted from their interest in rugs, myself. One of those original rugs now graces my living room floor; a Kashan rug from Iran with a blue and brown color scheme on an ivory background.  I was the one who spoke up soonest when Dad and Glenna emailed that they were ready  to pass it along, and were any of us interested in having it?   YES!

 And until last week, a rather elderly and faded red, white and brown Bokhara lay on my bedroom floor:

The Old Bokhara

            It’s nice to know I came by my rug passion honestly, however dormant the fever may be in me. I just love rugs woven anywhere in the area encompassing Turkey, Iran and Iraq, India and China.  I love the intricacy and the variety of the designs,  love the rich color schemes and the way they go together. A rug like one of those beautifies any room it occupies in a way that nothing else does. I had been flirting with the idea of  buying one for my very own for the last five years or so, and had  been window shopping at the Medallion Rug Gallery or The Golden Loom with that thought in mind. But I didn’t have the courage to actually go in until I was serious about buying.  And  somehow the prospect of actually buying that new rug felt as intimidating and only a little less self-indulgent than buying myself a fur coat.  And so I would always talk myself out of it before hitting that critical point.  The time wasn’t right, it was more prudent to save the price of a rug, I might need the money more later; what business did I have buying a rug like that when I live in a distinctly utilitarian little apartment as opposed to a stately manse or a Moroccan palace;  I had no idea how to get the best value for the money, etc etc. Full of tiresome but practical reasons not to actually make the investment, I kept passing by those rug stores. I  kept eyeing the rugs stacked by their front doors in that tempting way rug sellers seem to have, too full of timidity to take a closer look.

            Until two weeks ago, that is.  At the end of April and the beginning of May, I did a four-day stint of cat sitting for my friend Judy’s three cats while Judy and her husband were on vacation in New York.  She paid me far more for doing  this favor than I would have dreamed of asking, since I’d thought I was simply doing her a favor between cat enthusiast friends.  After all, it just was a brief daily visit to bring in the papers, feed three cats and scoop the cat box, not feeding, walking and grooming some pampered, high maintenance purebred show dog. But the check Judy left for me was a veritable Stimulus Package from the Bank of Weiler.

            “Listen kiddo, the peace of mind was worth it to me,” Judy told me when she called   Sunday morning after getting home and I’d thanked/scolded her for the check.  “You’re one of the only people we know who’s not scared of Sage.”  Sage is Judy’s Alpha cat, and he runs the Weiler household with an iron paw in a furry glove.  He weighs twenty-two pounds but is far from obese, and stands as tall at his shoulder as a Welsh Corgi. Woe betide the cat sitter who doesn’t put his bowl down first in his preferred kitchen eating spot, as they will never hear the end of it.  Sage badly frightened another cat sitter by chasing after her through the house  growling and hissing at her. He does sound menacing when he does this, as I know from experience.  But there’s only so much guff I’ll take from a cat I happen to be feeding even if he does weigh twenty-two pounds.  When Sage tried that chase routine on me, I stood my ground.  I turned around, bent down (not very far, as Sage is quick with a claw swipe), looked that cat in the eyes  and approximating Sage's hiss as best I could, I gave ast good as I got. You never saw such a confused cat in your life.  He stopped chasing me and stared. ‘Hey!  She hissed at me! Can she do that?’ When I told Judy about that episode, she couldn’t stop laughing for several minutes.

            I didn’t protest too much about the check. Certainly not to the point of giving it back. Weak moral fiber I guess.  Or maybe because by the time Judy called on Sunday morning,  the new rug had  already been on my bedroom floor for two days.  There’s something about a windfall that makes me lose my head.  On Monday April 27, I’d been in downtown Palo Alto, where, to my dismay, I’d seen those dreaded bright orange “Closing Sale! Everything must go!” going out of business  banners posted on the windows of Medallion Rug Gallery. The less prestigious Golden Loom had already closed its doors in January, an early victim of the bad economic times. I had hoped the older, better established Medallion Rugs would survive the apparent collapse of Western capitalism.  But if they, too, were about to close forever, I swore I would not miss my last chance to buy a rug from them. Came Friday, I went back downtown, determined to act like a tough, experienced rug buyer who wasn’t about to be overawed by anything. Armed with a top price of $300.00 and all good intentions not to look like a complete noob, I walked in, determined not to walk out without a new rug.

The deep, but narrow showroom I walked into was one of four belonging to Medallion Rugs on University Avenue.  They were just  closing two showrooms and consolidating their inventory as it turned out, not going out of business entirely, I was relieved to hear. But I was intimidated enough; the showroom looked like a combination of an elegant living room and a bazaar straight out of the Arabian Nights, and I’d never felt less tough in my life. But I was in the door and I wasn't going to wimp out, now.  I even greeted the salesman who walked up to me by saying  “Yes I’m looking for a 3 x 5 rug…”  Next, out came a  young woman who offered me a cup of hot tea in a little glass on an ornamental tray. This is a lovely, hospitable custom especially on a wet afternoon, but somewhat impractical for someone who needs to take a critical look at the merchandise.   Mr. Nasiri, the salesman helping me, was a tall, balding gentleman, with an elegant, somewhat saturnine presence.  The little tea cup had no handle and was too hot to hold comfortably at first. So I had to use both hands to steady the tippy little tray it rested on with both hands. I was terrified that my tea would spill all over some precious rug at any minute:  Oh my what a shame and right on the nice, pale background, too…it’s antique silk, you say? Palace-sized? That’s really beyond my rug budget, I’m afraid… Dear me, what an awkward situation…

            I was one of only two customers in showroom that wet Friday afternoon—hardly a peak business hour in the annals of rug buying. Once I gave Mr. Nasiri the idea of what I was looking for, a younger sales associate kept bringing out more rugs in my chosen size and unrolling them on the parquet flooring for me to see.   The rugs were a feast for the eyes and senses; rich colors intricate patterns, any one  of which I’d be proud to have on my floor.   But the cream, beige and brown carpet was too light and too much like my Kashan, and the one with the black background was too dark, and I didn’t like the pattern on the blue carpet, and the blue was not the right blue for me. Have I mentioned that I’m easily overwhelmed by quantity?  I had no idea which one would be the best value for the money I had to spend, and why hadn’t I asked Glenna to come along to give me some guidance in rug etiquette and moral support? There was no good play acting; when it came to buying rugs, I might as well have had  “noob” tattooed on my forehead. Even without it, Mr. Nasiri was a noob-spotting rug expert, if ever there was one.  But there was also no point in buying something I didn’t absolutely love.

            “This one is a Tabriz for two hundred forty dollars,” Mr. Nasiri said, unrolling the ninth or tenth carpet at my feet. Now this one caught my eye in a way the others had not. It had a  red and cream border with brown, blue and red flowers.  The center field was a crimson that managed to be deep and vivid at once, making the cream, brown and green flowers and swirly, circling vines pop out against it.  In the absence of research and experience, sometimes the eye and heart must make the decision.

            “Sold!” I blurted. Knees knocking, I gave my ATM card to Mr. Nasiri who seated me in a nice armchair to wait and finish my tea while he glided off to the backroom to finalize the sale.  Medallion Rugs doesn’t have anything so crass and commercial as a cash register just sitting there in plain sight, you understand.

“You don’t pay the asking price for a rug,” Glenna had  told me last November as I admired their newest, large beautiful living room Persian rug which replaced the equally large  equally beautiful  living room rug  that they’d had since the rug auction.

            “They have more respect for you if you negotiate, a little. That’s how I got our new dining room rug, too. I took it back to the store and told the salesman ‘I’m so sorry, I love this carpet, but my husband says he won’t pay more than six hundred dollars for it’. And they agreed to sell it at that price.” I never knew my father was such a tough guy.

            Is it bad form to buy a Persian rug while you’re still working on only your first cup of tea? I wondered as I nursed my cooling cup. I wondered if I were offending anyone through being too hasty with this  major purchase. I tried to look blasé and confident, as if I marched in and bought rugs every month or so:  'I have a kick-ass credit rating, and I buy so many Persian rugs, I’ve run out of floor space in my mansion  and am now carpeting my kennels.  I want my purebred Afghan Hounds and Salukis to feel right at home, you see.'

             I do, evidently, I informed my disapproving inner Greek chorus.  Having taken the plunge, I ruthlessly squashed down their voices and all my own doubts and reservations with them,  refusing to feel guilty.  Of course I could have used the money more wisely, but this was what “mad money” was all about.  After my dismay at tax time, I was buying myself something I loved, something I’d wanted for years, and for less money than I’d originally planned to spend on a rug I expected to own the rest of my life.  It was worth it to me.  I rose, having concluded my business, thanked Mr. Nasiri for his help, and was followed out the door by the younger sales associate, my rolled up-rug slung over his shoulder.  I might be a noob, but dammit, I was a decisive one.

            Why didn’t I park a little closer? I thought as we walked a block and a half down University Avenue together. Once out the door, I  felt conspicuously weird being followed by a man carrying my carpet for me. Rather like a woman of the British Raj in India being followed by her bearer tottering under all her packages through a crowded Delhi Bazaar.  Not so strange in 1909, perhaps. But in California in 2009, I slunk down the sidewalk wishing for invisibility.

            “Entitlement” is an indignant buzzword these days, for people who expect things they do not deserve for minimal effort.   I didn’t feel at all entitled to my rug once I got it home. I carried it in and leaned the roll against the living room wall hearing the Fucking Cuckoo-Bunny Nuts chorale in four-part harmony.  All my outraged Protestant synapses were firing at once.  I stood staring at it as my two cats investigated it, expecting a knock on the door from the Style Squad at any minute:  “Sorry ma’am, we’re going to have to confiscate that carpet. You had no business buying it, and you just plain live in the wrong part of town. You surely didn’t expect to get away with this, did you?”

          So I left the rug rolled up where it was and went to make myself a cup of tea in my kitchen.  This was going to need some processing. I didn’t even unroll it for an hour or two until after I’d made dinner and cleaned up, still half-awaiting the Style Squad. 

I felt better as soon as I unrolled it again. I felt better yet when I  rolled up the old Bokhara and put it away, laying down the thick new carpet in its place.  The China Tabriz was still deep red and cream, and I could appreciate its scattered elaborate cream, green and brown flowers and swirling vines far better than in the Medallion Rug Gallery with the impassive dignity of Mr. Nasiri looming over me. My little dressing area is elevated in every way through having this beautiful rug on the floor. Standing on it barefoot is a sensual pleasure. My apartment floors, carpeted or no, get very cold in winter.  If the Style Squad shows up  to take it now, they’re in for one hell of a fight if they try to take it away.  

 Home improvement made easy!