I hate the commercials for Bob's Discount Furniture. I never saw them until I moved to Massachusetts.

I don't know if that's because they started here or not, but I do know that now they're on in New York as well. I'm sure that before the year 2000 or so they were not.

Regardless, they're annoying commercials.

But I discovered this past week that the store is fantastic.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the need for a new dining room set became urgent this week.

On Saturday we went to Bob's to see what they had.

We ended up with a great new dining room set. (Stay tuned - when it arrives it'll certainly be a "New Thing".)

But we also ended up with a great new experience. First of all, the store has some pretty great furniture and compared to other local furniture stores the prices are great. (I'm always amazed at how expensive things are at Jordan's Furniture, which prides itself on its 'underprices'. "If those are underprices I'd hate to see their overprices," I like to say. No one likes me saying it.) But even better, there's a little fish pond inside the store, which the girls loved, and there's also a cafe with what I believe are free snacks and beverages.

I don't know exactly what's in the cafe - I didn't venture there yet. I didn't want to take the girls back there and have them wanting all the snacks.

But I figure I can just do it next time. Because I'll most certainly be back.