I have a really good delivery team, my pair of 22-year-olds (Kyle and Scott) who work part-time for me are careful, polite and like their jobs. However, they're not perfect - case in point.

This past Saturday we had a Southwood sofa to deliver in a light blue Schumacher fabric. The VERY last thing I told them before they started the run was:

"See this blue sofa I have wrapped up for stop # 4? That's a very costly fabric on that piece and it will soil easily. I want you guys to go in and look at the delivery path, then wash your hands before you get this out of the truck. Do not handle this without washing up first, are we clear on that - and be sure to dry your hands too, no water stains on this from your big mitt pawprints."

Now you just KNOW that with a preface like that something was going to happen. And it did.

They got to this stop, which is in an assisted living facility, and the lady who ordered it is 91 years old (I thought she was 89, but I was corrected). The lady's stepdaughter was there in the room as well to monitor the delivery.

Part of the deal was we had to haul out her old sofa, so they washed their hands like I told them to, and hauled out the old sofa to the truck in order to make room for the new one. The egress was very tight into the rooms and they had to go up against the door jambs with the old sofa, which was bigger. Unbeknownst to Kyle, he caught the back of his hand on something in the door frame and got a small cut that was bleeding. They went to get the new sofa and just as they got it in the room noticed a blood streak on the fabric from his cut from where Kyle had handled it. This is $ 125 a yard fabric. It was on the inside back of the sofa, (they had removed the primary cushions).

Poor Kyle absolutely freaked out and called me in a panic on his cell phone. As I listened to his story I was shaking my head, rolling my eyes because I had TOLD them to be extra vigilant!

I said "OK, Don't Touch the Stain, got it?"

Kyle said in an even more panicked voice: "She's using an ice cube on it right now!"

I said "Tell her to stop at once, water sets the stain!!"

Kyle dropped the phone and I could hear him saying "NO ! NO ! DON'T USE THE ICE AND WATER!" but it was too late..the stepdaughter was vigorously scrubbing the blood streak (which was very light, but it was on baby blue material).

My heart sank. Schumacher specifies 'dry cleaning fluids only' on this fabric, now the stain is water-set.

The granddaughter gets on the phone and is furious with me. She is very agitated and demands I send a professional stain technician to the retirement facility on Monday (its currently Saturday). I try to explain to her that there is no point in it, the water sets the stain and once its dry no professional cleaner can do anything with it, and that she should not have gone after it with an ice cube and wet towel.

She hung up on me!

Ho boy. Dilemma. My guy should not bleed on a customer's sofa, but the customer should not take it upon themselves to go after the stain. That's our responsibility and no way I would use water on the fabric, especially since I know what Schumacher specifies. Equally shared fault? If we have to recover this inside back its going to be about $ 700.

I text the guys and tell them to IMMEDIATELY bring the new sofa to the store before the water dries so I can have a crack at it. They are only 5 miles away from the store.

The truck shows up 15 minutes later and I have my triage of stain removers all laid out and tell them to bring the piece right into the store at once. They looked at me and laughed....I said 'Whats so funny?"

"That 91-year-old woman was NOT letting that sofa leave" Kyle said. "She loved it and said since the stain was covered up by the back cushions she could care less -besides, when we left the granddaughter had 90 % of it removed, you could barely see it. She was more concerned with the cut on my hand."

I look at Kyle and said "I think you just dodged a bullet." He agreed. And we decided that we're going to start carrying latex medical gloves in the truck from now on to prevent this sort of thing from recurring.

Never a dull moment....