latest archives guestbook about me links

email

04.28.2002 - 10:50 a.m.

Sunday
Ok. So Ikea. Have you been to one of their stores? Wow. It's like…I don't know, it's like a home shopping PARADIGM, Swedish-ly speaking. JB and I drove way out to BFE yesterday to what we thought would be a little store full of a few cheapo closet organizers and such. Instead we plunged into a Disneyland style parking area ("Remember: you are in the Eklesto Lot!"), and entered The Catacombs of Ikea.

The whole store is designed ingeniously (those diabolically clever Swedes!) to wind you through every single area they have, so you walk and walk and walk and dodge people with their dorky little Ikea carts and you walk some more and damn, there's still Home Office Smart Kitchens Rugs Storage to go.

We ended up finding a computer desk setup we really liked. For the low low price of $226. All righty, so you've found an item you want to take home. Now a perky Ikea salesperson enters all of the product data into their system, and you get a receipt. You then walk the seventy miles back to where you pay for stuff, then you stand in line behind a person who is buying, apparently, half the stock of the entire store.

You are startled and confused by the fact that you actually observe a few customers with Swedish accents. Is this the mother ship for them? Are Swedish people just naturally tidier and more efficient and tending towards metal accents and birch countertops?

Once you finally pay, you go back to your own lot, then drive to another lot, where you actually pick up your stuff. Despite the fact that you were aware you must assemble the desk, it is somehow shocking to see that your item comes in 4927 pieces, two of which are extremely large and heavy.

It is then, and only then, that it occurs to you and your husband that it would perhaps have made more sense to purchase the desk AFTER moving into the new house. You curse colorfully and steadily as you struggle to bring the pieces up 5 flights of stairs to the apartment you are vacating in 3 weeks.

Ikea, man. It's a freaky place. They also have one of the most enormous ball areas I've ever seen. You know, those glass walled rooms with a bazillion plastic balls that kids play in? Some of those kids were several layers deep. You could see them all pressed against the glass, like some bizarre archeological find.

So THEN, like it wasn't ENOUGH excitement that we got the desk, or technically "the bits and pieces that should theoretically result in a desk", we headed downtown to check out the Bon's furniture section.

The Bon has decent furniture, but you have to fend off gray-suited slick-haired salesmen constantly. "Back!" you shout, brandishing a whip and a small chair, "Get back!"

All this time that we've been looking for couches, we've decided that we were not going to consider leather, because our cat is possessed by demons. Demons whose mission is to dig at couches (yeah, sort of a lame job, demonically speaking, but that's what you get in the afterlife when you don't eat your peas).

And so yesterday, while we were at the Bon…we just…immediately bought two leather couches. I can't explain it. They looked great, and they felt great, and they were on sale, and we were all pumped up from the Swedish Experience, and all that. So a couch and a loveseat, ready to be delivered to the new house the day after we move in.

I'm banking on the cat not digging because she didn't dig much when she was an outside cat in the past. She's trapped in the apartment now, but once we're in the house she can go scratch the hell out of a tree or something.

Maybe I'm kidding myself. You'll probably read an entry sometime in the future that will be like "Oh my gaaawwwwwd the cat ripped a giant HOLE in the couch what'll I dooooooo?"

And you'll be all smug and "I told you so".

Jerk.

So are you having a good Sunday? It's sunny and awesome outside and I'm heading down to the Seattle aquarium soon. Harbor seals and otters and jellyfish, yay. I'm meeting my pal Peaches and another online journaller, Kim Rollins (whose diary I would link to but it's all Discontinued or something, sob).

It's a fine day, there are couches to dream about, there's leftover Thai for dinner, and Crown Royal & 7-Ups to be sipped while watching Iron Monkey tonight. Life is good.

go back ::: forward

04.26.2002 - The new house, as represented by little graphical doohickeys.
04.25.2002 - There are other fun things in the tank, too, like the Giant Turd.
04.21.2002 - 6 Things That Have Nothing To Do With Anything

0 comments so far.

I have moved. - 1.03.2005
Obviously, a work in progress. - 12.27.2004
Happy holidays! - 12.24.2004
Listen, I am not a complete dick, it's not like I want Joe to die alone surrounded by cats or something. - 12.23.2004
Plus I am convinced my butt is extra big when it's upside down. - 12.22.2004

yay, diaryland