Cinerant

Love or Hate

Do I love or hate Ikea after spending the weekend putting the stuff together? I don't know? But I spent waaay too much time at the store this weekend.

Typical encounter

I get my number. It's so long that it'll be years before I'm called. I can just fill it. I'm sure I looked stupid sprinting through the doors, passing people who were slowly approaching the blue pole where they could take a number. I knew what I was in for. I wanted to be ahead of them in line. Amateurs. Don't know nothing.

Then I sit beside a woman who was returning something. After a few minutes I was about to lean over and ask her how long she's been waiting. Then I take a look at her and realize that she's clutching a pillow made in the shape of a heart with arms coming out of it. She's holding this thing so tightly that I think her own heart might stop from all the pressure put on it. (I guess IKEA pillows really are soft.) I decided to ignore her.

After I'd been rebuffed by several underage teenage girls, they call my number! WAHOO! I bounce up to the counter because I'm about to get outta here! I'm sure the people behind the counter were thinking, "Amateur."

I show her the piece of my bookcase that was broken when I opened it up. The girl looked in the back and couldn't find one, so she had to pull it from the floor. She asked me to wait and she'd bring it to me. And you know what? I did. As soon as I moved away from the counter, I felt like I'd been stamped with a big sign on my face reading "AMATEUR HERE!" I should've stood there and waited, but I'd just been to church and I thought I'd try and be kind and gracious. Stupid mistake. I should've started preaching and threatening hellfire and brimstone down on the people who were making me wait so long.

After a while I got bored and I kicked some three year old out of the playhouse they had put in room for kids to play in while their parents. I pointed the kid to the woman with the heart pillow and told her to steal it from the lady as soon as the men in the white coats finished strapping her to the gurney? She asked how she'd know they were done. I told her to wait until they pulled the sheet over the woman's face. Then they'd be done.

Eventually, the child grew up enough to start kindergarten. I knew that meant I needed to get out of the playhouse or my knees would give way. So I found somebody who was returning a mattress and thought I'd test it out-just to see if there really was a reason for them to be returning it or if they were sado-masochists and just forgot to get the leather bound mattress with whips and chains included.

Finally, the customer service representative brings me over the piece I needed for my bookcase. By this time, I'd already forgotten why I was there. I just assumed I'd been homeless for so long that in some weird twist of events, this ended up being my real new home. It wasn't a funny thought.

But I got home and finished putting the bookcase together. It looked so happy, I almost couldn't fault its maker anymore.

Almost.

posted by cinegod @ 1:46 PM