I have a little love affair with Pottery Barn.  Every time a catalog arrives in the mail, I flip through the pages looking for a way to crawl in.

Who wouldn’t want to live there?  It’s a magical land where throw pillows always stay perfectly askew and people sip bottled water that cost more than my first car.

In Pottery Barn Land, every window has a view and you can hang a chandelier made out of antlers and no one calls you a redneck because you didn’t shoot the buck yourself.

Of course, no one in Pottery Barn Land has time to shoot a deer himself because everyone is too busy covering books in matching white paper and shopping for beige like it’s a noun.

In Pottery Barn land, children named Ashton and Brooklyn paint quietly at kid-sized tables perched over $1500 hand-knotted chevron rugs.  They don’t even need smocks because Pottery Barn children have been taught to be careful with their cashmere.

Bless their little hearts.

Whenever Chess Club lets out early, Ashton and Brooklyn invite a group of ethnically diverse friends over to climb trees.  You know, the trees that grow up inside their playroom. 

However, Pottery Barn kids don’t climb trees, even the ones growing right up in front of their noses, and that’s a crying shame.

But I still want to live there.

It’s just too bad the exchange rate between The Real World and Pottery Barn Land is unfavorable.  My dollar is worth so little there, I can’t even afford to live on the outskirts of town where oddly-sized pillow shams and last season’s Christmas ornaments are marked down to near-Target prices.

I have had to reconcile myself to a life of vicarious Pottery Barn living by means of catalog ogling.

But then, I saw this picture:

Don’t get distracted by the sieve on the wall–they had a design intern working that day–and check out that amazing chandelier!

You want a closer look.  I understand.

Look at those gorgeous hand-blown glass pendants in eclectic shapes and sizes!  Look at the mottled glass and non-energy efficient light bulbs!  I had to have it.  But at $500, there was no way that chandelier was going to get into my house.

Unless I stole it. 

At first, I recoiled from the idea.  But then, a plan begin to form in my little thieving brain and I knew what I had to do.

I had to steal that chandelier, and I had the perfect idea of just how to do it. 

But wait!  I can’t share all my secrets in one day. Come back tomorrow and catch me red-handed!  I will show you exactly what I stole from Pottery Barn, and how you can steal it too!