Last Friday (6-20-08) I’m sitting at work doing nothing until a customer strolls in.  I walk up to her and ask if I can help her with anything.  She asks if we sell floor models and if the sale prices are the final price.  I answer yes to both and decide to keep helping her because of the way she carried herself and how happy she seemed about life.  I’m doing my standard salesmen schmooze game to try and figure out what kind of price range she is looking for furniture in.  She tells me she’s looking for one of her houses in Minnesota.  I respond with something like, “one of them?”  And she tells me she has houses in L.A., Boston and Minnesota.  I say something like, “wow someone lives the jet set lifestyle.”  And she says, “yeah, but it’s because of my brother.”  I’m like, “oh yeah, who is he?”  “He’s the best basketball player in the world.”  I quickly respond, “TheChamp.”101 TheChamp’sSister says, “good answer” and I’m in.  I spend the next hour pacing our two levels watching her just point at furniture and say I’d like one of those, three of those without ever asking a question about the furniture.  Instead we talked only about TheChamp.  

When put on the spot it was difficult to think of any specific questions I would have for TheChamp.  I asked what he thought of Kobe and she said, “he respects him.”  Translation, he has the same opinion as the masses, he sucks.  I asked if he stays in touch with any of the current Timberwolves and she said only McCants.  He was closer to the players who have moved on, specifically Trenton Hassell and Troy Hudson (whose house we’ve also furnished). 

Turns out, TheChamp’sSister was buying all this furniture, so that TheChamp would have something to use when he was in town for a couple weeks.  He started building this mansion in Minnesota about a year ago assuming this was going to be the house he would be living in for the rest of his career.  Next thing you know he gets traded and now he has a decision to make.  If he decides to keep this palace of a home I will be furnishing the entire thing.  TheChamp doesn’t know if he’ll keep it because he doesn’t have as much reason to come to MN anymore.  He lived in Minnesota during the past seasons and L.A. in the summer I learned.  I am praying he keeps the home.  A bunch of people are under the assumption that he has been trying to sell his house on the internet (including several of my friends who have sent me the MLS listing in the past).  She told me the internet house is a complete hoax and someone is just trying to claim its TheChamp’s house to try and sell it easier.  TheChamp said he has no reason to come out and prove this guy wrong because he doesn’t want people to know where he actually lives.

Turns out TheChamp has had a big year, he got his first championship and first child within the past couple months.  TheChamp’sSister showed me pictures on her phone of the players and families in the locker room after winning the title.  They are all messing around with the trophy and getting rowdy.  It looked like just a little bit of fun.  Speaking of family, she asked me to employ some family friend of hers at our warehouse.  Since, she wanted a favor I tried to slyly ask for an autograph as well at one point.  See, I have this plan, I want to have an autographed jersey of my favorite MN athletes framed on my living room wall.  And I don’t want to just buy them off the internet.  I either want them personalized or I want to personally see them do it.  I already have the Joe Mauer one.  I want a TheChamp one and then either an AD, Chad Greenway (due to the Iowa affiliations) or Randy Moss.  Turns out TheChamp is weird when it comes to autographs and she said she might be able to, it just might take some time.  But, she could get me other players immediately.  I’m in no hurry, I want the man whose home I furnished.   

Back to the furniture part of the story.  So, I show her all of the merchandise on the floor and then decide since all she is doing is buying stuff based on appearance I might as well take her to the warehouse and look at the furniture in the aisles.  She decides to ride along in my car, which was her idea since she wanted to continue talking.  I’m telling you she loved me.  If she was only 10 years younger and not married to an enormously cut man that I met at the house later.  But, in the car I brought up TheChamp’s cars and it turns out TheChamp has 6 Range Rover’s and TheChamp’sSister has two.  We get back to the store and start finishing up the sale when she remembers we haven’t found her a couch yet.  She starts describing the couch he wants and a light flips on in my head.  The couch she is describing sounds exactly like this bomb ass couch I bought for myself about a year ago (but still haven’t bought a house yet to move it into) that I have sitting at the warehouse.  It’s the sweetest couch ever it makes a partial U, it’s 10 ft by 16 ft by 6 ft.  It has like 20 pillows on it and reminds me of a playground which is the reason I bought it.  I take her back over to the warehouse and she tells me he’s going to love it.   I mean it doesn’t matter to TheChamp that the couch is $5,000 and he will only be living their for two weeks.  This just put me over the edge.  Not only am I going to sell TheChamp furniture, but he is going to have the couch I bought for myself in his living room.  How fucking awesome is that? 

How do you know you have taste? When the couch you bought for yourself is sitting in TheChamp’s living room.

We finish up the sale of $11,500 and I need to start getting all the merchandise ready to deliver that night for TheChamp’s arrival the next day.  My dad and I deliver the merchandise ourselves because we want to see this house and also get a good thing going with TheChamp’sSister by delivering it personally.  We don’t get out there until about 9 p.m. so we are delivering in the dark.  Not to mention this house is so secluded that I had the exact directions and I couldn’t find it.  His home was amazing, we got the royal tour after we finished our delivery.  It featured pillars on the outside and resembled something that belonged in Italy.  Hell it was big enough it almost felt like a museum.  Speaking of a museum, he had one huge room in the house with just large framed pictures on the walls, nothing else in it.  He had a huge fishtank built into one of the walls and one room that was being prepped to become a massage room.  He had the obligatory theater room that you see on cribs102.  There was a sound system throughout the house meaning every room had music playing at all times. 

Before leaving I present TheChamp’sSister with some fancy wine bottles. My dad’s idea, which was brilliant.  I mean she already loved me before that and that just put her over the edge.  She gives me a $150 tip and I’m on my way.  The rest of the night featured me sitting in D’s kitchen with the biggest smile on my face.  I was euphoric.  I didn’t know what to do with myself, I just sat their smiling for 20 minutes.  I didn’t want to go to bed because I didn’t want the day to end.  Afterwards I tried to think of what has ever put such a big smile on my face.  And then I remembered losing my virginity.  Thus, last Friday was a top 2 day in my life to this point.  Which is crazy to think that I worked from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. and it was my second favorite day ever.    Strange and surprising that work could be that fun.

Turns out TheChamp didn’t arrive Saturday.  Good news for me.  TheChamp’sSister came back to the store and bought another $9,500 worth of furniture including a bad ass marble office desk for another $5,000.  We delivered all that furniture late afternoon Saturday.  So, this was the first time I was seeing my furniture in his house in the daylight.  And boy must I say, my couch looked bad ass.   Everyone agreed, and by everyone I mean the random 15 people lurking about his house making sure you don’t touch anything or take pictures.  I got a picture of my couch in his living room, but it’s from the night before and it is dark out and it doesn’t do it justice.   Plus that was the only thing TheChamp’s sister was particular about throughout the day, no pictures of the house.

Hopefully, TheChamp is as genuine as his sister and decides to sign me a jersey for selling him My Couch.  I’m giving it a couple more days, but now that TheChamp’sSister has my cell phone number stored in her phone and texts more than I do, I will be sending her a text in the coming days asking what TheChamp thinks of my couch.

Side Note 101: At one point during our conversation TheChamp’sSister mentioned that she knows someone whose job it is to sit online all day and search athletes names to make sure they aren’t getting into any trouble and that the public isn’t finding out about it.  And because of that I don’t want TheChamp or TheChamp’sSister to ever find my website and be associated with my nonsense, so I will not be writing out his name.  Plus I found the beginning of this video hilarious when PP and Champ just keep calling each other Champ.