Shopping for the College Apartment (With a Trailer)

I should add that Elizabeth and I had splendid success with our trailer-assisted shopping mission. We went to two used furniture stores, each of which had a nice huge easy parking lot for the trailer. We found a loveseat in great condition, very comfy, $60—and the tag was the color of the day, so it was 50% off and we got it for $30. We spent more than that on an end table: $35 for a solid-wood (HEAVY) end table in great condition, with a drawer and a little cabinet and a magazine rack; as we were pointing it out to the clerk so she could put a sold tag on it, another customer good-naturedly but sincerely said he had been just about to go up and buy it, which was gratifying. We bought three smallish dining room chairs, nice sturdy dark wooden ones with a chunky floral carving on the backs. They’d been reupholstered, and the person who reupholstered them had centered a different element of the fabric pattern on each one. It was $16 for the set of three, and when we got up to the front…