Registry Wars

When Minh and I were about to be married, we registered for a number of household items at Crate & Barrel. Although Minh balked at the idea of actually registering, he found immense pleasure spending the months leading up to the wedding constantly checking the registry online to see which items had been purchased.

In one of his many registry checks he found a new item added to our list. An espresso maker. Neither of us had added that to the registry, so we were perplexed. Even more confusing was the fact that it had been purchased. The quantity listed in the "wants" column was 0 and the quantity in the "has" column was 1. That just about summed it up--we didn't want it, but we had it.

It arrived soon thereafter and we discovered who the culprits were. Apparently, they went to Crate & Barrel with intentions of buying us something off our registry, but then decided they did not like any of the items we had selected, so they picked out the espresso maker instead.

We seriously did not want this thing. So, after the wedding we hauled this rather large and heavy appliance back to Crate & Barrel and exchanged it for items remaining on our registry. What pain in the ass, honestly. Luckily, we know the folks who did this to us well enough to not only admit that we returned the item, but to give them a hard time about putting us through that. And now they are about to be married.

Game on.

Minh happened to be at a meeting last month right near a Crate & Barrel, where these lovely friends are now registered. So he popped over to get them their gift. What did he buy them? An espresso maker? Nah, they might actually want one of those. Minh searched that store for the largest, most useless appliance he could find, and then made sure they had not registered for it. He even specifically asked the salesperson to make sure this item was added to their online registry so that the happy couple could log on and see this....

Oh, yes. They are now the proud owners of a counter-top pizza oven. At least, that is, until they haul it back to the store and exchange it for something they actually want.