I have a love hate relationship with many things in my life- I love shopping, but hate shopping centres, I love the feeling I get from exercise but hate doing it, I love money but hate working... you get the picture. Anyway Ikea is my ultimate love hate. I love going there, but I hate going there because there are just sooo many people. Who dawdle. and have no idea what they are there for.
I can trace my Ikea phobia down to two thing-
1. I hate crowds. Hate, hate , hate them. I get bad tempered, and want to swear at people, I want to hit people and I become generally very unpleasant. This is the reason my poor children have never been to The Christmas Pageant. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it)
2. Too many options stress me out. This is the reason I can never go to Subway. There are just far too many decisions and they want you to make them quickly. ( Speaking of Subway when did they stop cutting that little triangle shape out of the Subs??)
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| I don't know what I want OK??? |
So needless to say out trips to Ikea are usually timed with military precision. That go something like this
1. Decide what you are going there for. That is the reason they put out that catalogue. So you can plan. On a side note they publish more issues of that than the Bible.
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| The 2014 Catalogue- Essental I repeat ESSENTIAL |
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| You can even use the app. You have no excuse to wander aimlessly . |
2. You go after breakfast, and before lunch, or after lunch. This is because at this time people are going nuts for their cheap meals. You can be sure of two things- bored housewives will be taking their kids out for the daily outing, (hence the after breakfast and lunch- nap times) and those lovely little pensioners will be having their daily outing. But will have to be home for Bold and the Beautiful.
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| A chicken parmy |
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| All this for $4.95!!!! |
3. You do not- I repeat do not go either in the second week of the two week holidays or in the last couple of weeks of the Christmas holidays. The reason for this is simple. By this stage mums will be completely over their children and the children will be completely over being dragged around by mum being forced to look at lights, or mats, or picture frames. Mums will be yelling at kids, kids will be sulking, little kids will be touching everything - or even worse be pushing little bloody carts around and wheeling into you.
4. You familiarise your self with the lay out of the showroom and you head straight for where you are going. Take those short cuts, and get there QUICK. You will have to do some ducking and diving around the professional browsers- but you can do it.
5. Find your item and take a photo of the tag that will tell you WHERE you can find your outing and what the product is called. Lets face it sometimes reading those tags is like reading The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. All those names sound the bloody same.
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| They are called dombas because if you go unprepared you are a domb-as. |
6. Make you way to the self service. Pick your self up some serviettes and straws on the way, grab one of the flat trolley things, go to the aisle, put stuff on the trolley (ensuring the label is somewhere it can be easily scanned) find a check out (personally I always go for my husbands choice, because if I have one super power it is that I will always pick the slowest moving checkout.)
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| 100 straws for $1.50. There is no need for words. |
7. Once you have pick your self up of the floor when you find out how much all those extra serviettes and straws that you have picked up have cost you pay- go to the food shop - buy your meatballs (always a few packets to make spaghetti and meatballs, call your mum to see if she wants some meatballs) get some mustard, move to the food checkout, buy a bag. ( Really? I just spent heaps of money and you want to charge me 40c for a bag) then move to the the food shop and buy your reward for all you hard work- The $1 hotdog. Which lets face it has really cost you $20 if you add in all those sneaky little must haves. I once saw a husband and wife shopping for meatballs in Ikea. His name was Sven. Sven from Sveden, buying meatballs in Ikea. GOLD.
Kottbullar- a bag of these, a jar of Paul Newmans pasta sauce, a bag of pasta and you have a meal.
8. Get in the lift, wait at the bay for your husband and or significant others brings the car to load your fab new purchases.
See easy- everyone is happy. Well except for whoever has to build all this flat packs. There is a trick to that. Act useless once or maybe ruin something once (make sure it is a cheap item though) and you will never be expected to assemble anything ever again.
So seeing as I appear to have it all sorted what went wrong? I can trace it down to three thing
1. We went at 12:30 on a Sunday. Rookie mistake. Lunch time and Sunday lunchtime at that.
2. We were over confident we thought we knew where we were going.
3. No contingency in place for the fact that they would have re-merchandised after Christmas. (DAMN YOU)
We got a parking spot, we were feeling confident, we knew where we were going, we took all the short cuts, We avoided the tables, the chairs, the kitchens, the bathrooms, the kids bit, the office bit, the cushions, the lights, straight down to the market place- straight to the self serve to the.......
WHERE THE BLOODY HELL IS THE OUTDOOR FURNITURE?????
Well not where is what before Christmas. I could feel the panic rising. It was the worst case scenario. We had to go back in. AGAINST THE TIDE. This goes against all my IKEA training. We were going back in.... and we had no idea where we were going. We regrouped- we assumed the outdoor table would be in tables. We took a deep breath. We went in. Dodging and diving. Braving all the dirty looks from the people going the right way. We got to tables. No Outdoor tables. I ask the lady. She says they are near the cashiers. I turn around to tell my husband. HE IS GONE. GONE.
I am lost in IKEA.
I tell my daughter. She consoles me with " It's OK mum, you still have your phone."
We call him, we head BACK to the cashier bit. NO. FREAKIN. OUTDOOR. FURNITURE..
We check the information computer. We find the table. We go to the aisle.The wrong aisle. We ask for help. We get directed to the right aisle. FREAKIN WHITE TABLE. OUT.OF.STOCK. Can this day get worse? Indi and I decide it is time to take action. We look at each other. We nod, and need no words.
"We think the table would be better in black anyway."
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| The source of all our stress. |
My husband puts the table and chairs on the trolley, we pick up two chairs for the verandah that I wanted ( he felt guilty because he snapped at me) picked the slowest moving checkout, fainted at how much extra the serviettes and straws cost, got out meatballs and mustard, got out $1 hotdogs (with mustard and sauce), and we were out of there. Exhausted. Physically and mentally.
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| But they only cost $3.50!! |
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| Best mustard. ever. |
And I still don't know where they have got the outdoor furniture on display.
and at least I got my hotdog
all images via the Ikea website except the dombas one. Thats from Pintrest.
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