Coffee! Aggh!!! Gimme coffee.
How can it be that it’s Wednesday already. It’s all a blur. Last night I spent several hours putting some Ikea furniture together. Wait – no, actually I should say..we spent several hours putting it together. Actually it was surprisingly easy. Gone are the days of MFI cupboards with wood-glue and flimsy fittings. These Ikea drawer units (they’re called “Malm” and we bought some “Komplement” things to go with it) fit together really well. No glue, no mess, and no extra “bits” left over! The only downside is when you call them up, or speak to a member of staff at the store. With names like “Dalselv”, “Bangsund”, “Tromsnes”, “Utsaga” and “Bygel”, you find yourself instead opting for a description…
“It’s that unit with 5 drawers in it.. Y’know, the birch coloured one?”
The shopping experience itself is worse (for me at least) than the “putting it together” experience. Last night I got home and we spent from about 8.30pm to 11pm putting the bed (for the spare room), small set of drawers and big set of drawers together. Apart from the copious amounts of cardboard packaging, we did it quite easily. However, buying the things in the first place was a tad trickier. For a bloke, if you’re tasked with “going to Ikea to get a bed, a small set of drawers and a large set of drawers”, then that’s just what you do. This, in my head, was the plan on Monday evening when we rolled up at Ikea Wednesbury at 9pm. But .. This was just the start of where mens logic and womens logic differ. Here’s the presumptions I had…
I had the stupid idea that Ikea would be “quiet” because it was 9PM on a Monday night. Nope, still rammed. DOAH!
I thought that we would cut-through the displays (go in and turn right) and go straight to the warehouse section to get the necessary bits, then out. Nope, Emily wanted to go through the display section and look at lighting, chairs, cupboards, plants and.. Oh oh.. Everything and anything else at all really. DOAH!
I presumed that we would get out before 10, as that’s when it closed. Nope, we’re in the “Marquee” section at 10PM buying the “Malm Drawer Units”. DOAH!
I believed we’d be able to fit most things into the Mini we have.. Hmmm.. Just.. Yes, but still quite crammed, especially with the mirrors, candles and other bits we seem to have “picked up” around Ikea. DOAH!
It makes me smile actually – not just being able to drive away from the place (that’s enough to make any bloke smile) – but watching couples across the car-park valiantly trying to squish 7-foot long cardboard boxes into their cars, which are clearly not designed for lugging colossal cargo around along with 4 people. You can drive out of the car-park watching kids with their noses pressed up against the side window…slowly turning blue. Or rear-doors bouncing up and down because the bloke was “too f**kin stupid” (as the lady next to us delicately put it) to bring a piece of rope to secure it as the cupboard door slowly slides out the boot.
Anyways, before we got to leaving my patience was running a tad thin. We’d been given a “picking list” thing so that we got all the necessary bits to make the bed. The friendly staff member made me smile as she read out the item number …
“That’s item numba.. Fower foive noin. Oww kay ?”
It’s so good to be back on my “manor” for a few hours. I come originally from the “Black Country” – living in West Bromwich, Darleston and Wednesbury . I miss the accent, which has now vanished from my own lingo. As the guy behind us in the queue struggled with a large box the cashier said….
“Rrr yow oww kay with that moyte?”
Classic.. I’m proud to be a “YimYam” :)
Anyway, before we got to the cashier I was getting a bit “narked”. The nice lady had given us this picking list and said, “It’s in three boxes, mayke su-ar that yow get all of them oh-kay?”.. So I did.. But in my rush I forgot the FOURTH box .. Which contained the slats for the bed….and they’re a different “item” completely.. Apparently. All I can say in my defence is that it was 10 o’clock at night and I’d been working all day.
We got home about 10.45, lugged everything upstairs and then I finally sat down about 11.30 to find out about the missing box..
You know what that means don’t you ?
Yes. We’ve got to go back.
