Let me tell you about the chair. But to do that, I need to tell you a little bit about last night, and why we had to run out of our hotel room here in Toronto this morning.

Last night was the Mirror Ball for Look Good Feel Better and FacingCancer.ca. As I’ve mentioned (and if you know me online, you’ve probably noticed), I both blog and work with FacingCancer.ca. So, we were fortunate enough to receive an invitation to the Mirror Ball this year. It’s a really big gala that raises funds for the programs. This is the stuff that helps ladies receive complimentary cosmetics when they are going through so much, and gives them a place to share stories and feelings online.

Anyhow.

We were at the Mirror Ball and it was goooooooddddd fun. After catching up with the other awesome FC.ca bloggers and behind-the-scenes lovelies, my favourite aspect of this ball (along with the appetizers, ambiance, buzz, fancy clothes, drinks, and delish food) is the silent auction. Silent m backside! That auction room is busy with people looking over the products on auction.

Let me dip into my memory and share some of these things:

Luggage – starting bids were around 20-100 dollars. Those are tempting numbers, particularly since our luggage is on its last days!

Loads of kids stuff. No thank you.

Kitchen goods and home wear from the Bay. Including a lovely scarf Zsolt and I were tempted to get into a bidding war over, but since it’ only worth 20 dollars in the first place, we didn’t bother.

Cosmetics galore!

Trips to here and there (not needed, through the train trip across Canada sounds cool).

Random stuff: There were puppies, a lawn mower, some giant plush mushroom…

Anyhow, I’ve been anticipating this auction from the moment we were invited. However, while it was time to browse, we started talking to friends and just skipped the entire showcase. Suddenly the lights are flicking on and off, signalling everyone to go out to the dining room.

No way! Zsolt and I are rushing around looking at stuff and mostly dismissing everything. Then somehow, we bid on a random sweater (which was cosy as a cloud in heaven) and the luggage. Then  we go to the amazing dining room and begin the meal. Except this year, everyone seemed auction obsession (which is a good thing, since it all goes toward the charity), and so the whole table is flipping through the little book of auction stuff. Zsolt and I decide to flip as well. That’s when we see a listing for an orange and cream chair for 20$. BAM! Before you can say, “Actually, we shouldn’t” the Zsoltster had bid on it! We’re in for 20 bucks on a chair we have no way to transport back to Ottawa.

And the auction goes on, and on, and on… and no one bids against us to take it away.

End of the night comes – and we’ve won the chair!

WTF!

We hadn’t even seen the chair. And I can’t even tell you why we bid. It just kinda happened. We were struck with silent auction fever . . . maybe they put something in the food . . . maybe we should just take this as a warning to never go to Vegas—our self control is not up to the challenge.

Anyhow, we go and pick the chair, and it actually turns out to be quite nice. (We didn’t win the luggage, but we, again, didn’t want to go into a bidding war over the pieces)

So we take this chair up to the hotel room, and figure we’ll sort it out tomorrow morning. Everything will be a okay.

Skip to 12.30 pm the next day, and we’re waking up – thirty minutes late for checkout. I have never seen my husband jump up from the bed so fast. He is part zombie, part productive-robot. We are literally throwing things into our various bags, hoping we don’t get charged extra as we sneak out the door.

You know, I am going to divert the blame and say this was the fault of the Royal York for having such temptingly thick curtains in their rooms. It was dark as night when we looked at the time, and I was half buried in a pile of feather pillows.

We get our stuff together, and just as we are about to make a quick exit we remember, we bought a freaking chair last night, and there it is in our room! So here is the dilemma: we took the train to Toronto, and as I learnt about half an hour later, VIA rail won’t let you take furniture onto the train.  Sooooooo….. after walking around Toronto for a while with this random chair, we have this conversation:

I say to Zsolt, “Let’s ditch the chair.”

He says to me, “But we can’t ditch the chair. I’ll feel bad since it’s such a good chair.”

I give in, cause I know it would make him feel badly, and it is a good chair.

So, one taxi ride later – going deeper into Toronto – (the taxi driver fleeced us as he could smell the desperation off of me. It was hard to find a driver who would accept a chair in his car)  we rock up to a friend’s house in Toronto and are asking him to please accept the chair into his home until he next drives down to Ottawa, which he very kindly does.

Therefore, in a month or two, the chair will come make its way to our apartment.

We made it back to the train on time, and now we are rocking and rolling toward Ottawa. The Mirror Ball was such a good time, and it was a pleasure to stop working for the night and just have fun. There was good company, good food, awesome fashion, and late-night dancing. There was also a chair.

And that is the story of that 🙂

The end.