is this our goldilocks bed?
What's that old saying?
The couple who IKEA's together...almost doesn't stay together? Or something similar. Nine months ago I sold my horrible IKEA couch after 3 years of barely using it and despising it every day. It was a huge relief to be rid of that stiff, unwelcoming, eyesore and I was so thankful that B took it on as his first job in SF: get rid of it via good ol' Craig's List. It was there when I left for work in the morning, and gone when I came home. I will never shop IKEA again!, I vowed. For nine months we then hemmed and hawed over what we wanted to replace it. Because of our teeny tiny space issues (read: we have no space), it was almost nicer not having a couch at all while we worked to settle into shared home-hood together. Then he got a bike for his commute, and the space got even smaller. Then everyone we love on the east coast decided it was the best year to get married and/or have babies, so our bank accounts got even smaller. In short, we've been couch-less for awhile, and it's only recently started to get to us. The straw that broke the Diggy/Fell backs in finally pushing us to whip out our credit cards, though, was our creaky and slightly starting-to-sag bed. Both of our lower backs had been sore off and on for a bit, and we noticed that any bit of movement was waking us both up several times a night. Lord knows, if mama doesn't get a good sleep, there will be a price to pay. I realized at 30, it was time to firm up. Goodbye, soft pillow top, hello, latex lumbar support. We've waited long enough -- it was time to commit to new furniture. So, we looked online for a few weeks. And we visited a few shops in our area. But since we were already going to be outside of the city, we decided to just look at a few IKEA pieces. Kill two birds with one stone, we thought, we'll simply look for ideas...and really, maybe it was just my one fluke horrid couch, how bad could it be... About 10 minutes into maneuvering the IKEA maze like a couple of suburban lab rats, the only question replaying through both of our minds was What fresh Hell is this?... To summarize the outcome of this trip: Tired, hungry, with growing impatience and regret for leaving the shining 80 degree sunshine to enter into fluorescents-ville, we ended up buying a new bed, new frame, and new couch for the sake of satisfying the overwhelming desire to just be freaking done with it already. Which, I think, is their plan all along -- weaken the people, make them vulnerable, then lure them with do-it-yourself discounts and the hope of $1 ice cream cones at checkout. The home delivery line alone was so bad, I barely had to convince health-conscious B that after already eating 2 slices of cake at a birthday party prior to our IKEA trek, this $1 ice cream cone was a really good idea. Overall, I think we worked pretty well together through the nonsense and hiccups that is IKEA. A few moments of tension mixed with a lot of shared laughs and hatred of their instruction manuals is not too shabby, all things considered. I know B must really love me, because his response to my inquiring how I could be of assistance during his apartment scrub down/re-arrange was "go eat, or you'll just get so hungry, you'll be hangry". Like a good little listener, I went out and bought a breakfast burrito. It was definitely the most helpful thing I could do, and I particularly enjoy being helpful when avocado is involved. Unfortunately, poor B had to return to IKEA today to pick up a missing and crucial piece of our bed frame. Oh yes, said customer phone support, you have to buy that separately. But wait: No one in the store thought to mention this to us in all 3 hours we were there. But we'd already driven home in traffic. But we'd patiently waited for our delivery the next morning, and then needed to make cocktails to stay calm during the assembly. Sorry for ya, was the reply, you'll have to go to the store to get it... This was such an infuriating and ridiculous piece of knowledge to gain during the final step of our 1.5 hour long building process that...as my girl Annie says...I began to think things so horrible it'd make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish. B feels the same way, Jesus/cat dish bad words and all. So even though we are thankful to just be freaking done with it (it = new apartment furniture, done = pending final build this evening), we are also so, so very done with IKEA. This time I really mean it*. (*can someone remind me of this the next time I think it's reasonable to just go and "browse"? ...) In Gratitude, Trish
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |