Into the belly of the blue beast

Into the Belly of the Blue Beast

Otherwise known as Ikea. So as I have been taught when a good deed is done unto you, you must pay it forward back unto the universe. So yesterday I took a new coworker who just moved here with his newly expanding family to Ikea to get family wardrobes and dressers. 

To go into Ikea more than a simple task, but its the kind of task I hate doing for a few reasons but here are the main concerns of this journey:

1. I have Jordan with me and anytime I have to go shopping or into this place she never wants to go to the kids corner and play and make life simpler for mommy she insists on tagging along spewing fire and shenanigans all over the place

2. The layout of the story is truly like the labyrinth in the 80's movie. There is only one flow going in and down stairs and out, In the US the store is broken out into several floors by rooms- kids, kitchen, living room, office, etc. This one has not rhyme or reason just chaos

3. The guy I’m going with doesn't have a clue on what it is he really was looking for, just measurements, and didn't go on a reconnaissance mission online to check merchandise out or try and build what he may or may not need - ohh this is going to hurt.

So here we go, pray I don't kill anyone

So we enter into the belly of the beast and we agree that should we become separated we would call or text each other. I wish him best of luck in his search, I already knew what I was looking for and we went our separate ways.

 I manage maneuver my way through the first section with him, and there are a great deal of people in here, in the beginning I mange to watch couples walking by hand in hand, staring lovingly into each others eyes, not aware of the trouble and stress lurking ahead. 

Anyway I quickly get to the kids section where I let Jordan try out the new lofted bed I thought about getting her. This one has room for her to sleep in up top, place for friends to sleep over on the bottom or a cool reading corner for her and all her bazillion stuffies to hang out with and miscellaneous tea parties.

So after testing the merchandise out, and visualizing the dragon in her new space we get up and decide to meander about the rest of the store where I find a few new things and a new bamboo for my desk at work.

We descend downstairs and have a seat, my thinking is that my companion should have found what he needed by now, took down some numbers and hopefully on his way downstairs now in hopes of dragging the parcels piece by piece off the dusty shelves so we can get out of here. Man that part of the process gets my head hurting just thinking about it. There are about 4 phases of buying large items here in Ikea and each of them is like going through some type of marine training boot camp that takes not only physical strength but also heart and patience and mental capacity.

Phase one: you scout out the merchandise and get what you need. This may sound easy enough but if you don't have a clue on what you are looking for or no type of guidance what so ever you are doomed and could possibly watch your life pass you by quickly while you decide now on the infinite possibilities and combinations of what you could build.

Small intersection: you need your first lifeline, like getting a mushroom in super Mario brothers, the cargo cart will help you skate around the ground floor with your parcels with ease but what is truly needed if you are solo is another body to help you carry these ungodly odd shaped packages onto the cart but alas the Ikea employees are only there to point you into the right direction but not lend a helping hand

Phase two: You trudge downstairs and make sure that the packaging number you got from upstairs- weather its the wardrobe collection paper or something you wrote down is correct and is on the available shelves. So to begin you start looking for the matching numbers- starting with the aisle number then section- like 20:17. But wait you get there and then there are four sections, what kind of trickery is this, damn I actually need to line up the ASIN number on my paper with this to make sure I don't accidentally get a white drawer to go with my dark wood wardrobe instead of the matching colors. All right right pieces are insight, not get those suckers on your cart without throwing your back out

Insert tears of delirium and possible joy as you envision the end

Phase three: At this point you should be good and sweaty, and if you are not that means you are missing pieces to your said project. You probably have any where between three to fifteen odd shaped boxes on your cart and you can now wheel them to what you think is the finishing line, ah check out!!! Finally the end of this crazy carousel is coming to an end, or so you think. So you get to the check out and wait patiently for your turn. While standing there you notice a few more baubles and toss them in, and then realize" how in the bloody hell will I get all of this stuff home?" Of course you only thought you were only coming home with a few boxes but nothing that couldn't fit in the back of your VW with the seats folded down. So what do you do?  You happen to glance over by the customer service area and see that they have delivery, hmmm you think to yourself " that has to be easier then me trying to shove all this in my car and dragging it into my flat myself."

So its decided once you get out of this line you will head that way to seal the final deal and head home. So you look up and its finally your turn to check out, the cashier starts going through all your loot and notices that some of the barcodes are on the other side of some of the boxes facing down so you now must take a lot of the stuff off the top to so he can scan it, does he offer to help you in any of this? Of course not because that would be to much like right to help you as you suffer through taking these odd shaped boxes off the cart just so he can scan them and then have to lug them back on. Truly at this point you should be overwhelmingly tired, sweaty and ready to break the hell out of the belly of the beast as the sense of defeat is whispering in your ear.  But you decide to hang in in there and see this thing thru to round four and then you are free!

Insert tears of disbelief, as you are about to walk out this MF soon

Phase four: So you decided to stay for the final round and pay for delivery. This is the final stage of the game, and of course the delivery service area is close to the exit so you can have second thoughts about waiting and filling out forms and run out of the store screaming possibly leaving your paid for parcels at the door but you say to yourself this is it and get ready. So there are two sections of this area, one is customer service where there is a number system the other is actually just for delivery and seems easy enough but there seems to be two sections and you have no idea what is what, so you wait in line with the rest of the victims of life drainage and start flashing back over what in the hell brought you to this point, head spinning, dehydrated and ready to fall asleep where you stand, you wait and wait. Finally it’s your turn and you are so excited to have arrived at this final destination. Pass over your receipt, tell them your name and address what’s my name again, damn here is my ID because I can't think straight, and walk over to your cart so you both can count the number of pieces to make sure nothing is forgotten. Nothing worse then getting home, ready to build a dresser only to find that you are missing a drawer and now you have this odd shaped looking dresser and of course you are forced to make that journey like Frodo back into the black gates of mordoor and retrieve the missing pieces to your broken heart I mean your drawer to your dresser. All information obtained, delivery paid for you are now free to walk or slither away as you are now broken and tired, possibly ready to sleep in your car since your life force has been drained. 

If you make it through these four obstacles congrats you are an Ikea furniture survivor, and in case you are wondering if I am making this part up this actually is my account of Ikea when I went to get my wardrobe an a few other pieces for our new place. Now put a fussy dragon on top of that and no one helping me with three carts of stuff and boy I can tell you about the hallucinations I had while plucking and gathering pieces and praying to God that we make it out there alive and all pieces will be together because I vowed I would never come back again for anything this ridiculous again. But I had paid for delivery and assembly because there was no way in hell I was putting it together- so 3 weeks until my delivery to come and I said that was fine because it was worth me not suffering any more through this ordeal.

But alas there I was again- helping out my fellow man. This time I wasn't Frodo, I was Sam Wise there to carry him through and get him the hell out of there. A bit braver, wiser, but still frustrated.

As I said we were down in parcel purgatory waiting for my companion to descend down, and about 20-30 min later I began to worry. So I called him as we agreed and asked where he was, he was a bit unsure but down stairs some where and then he said he saw me. He had a look of confusion and was dragging a cart behind him with miscellaneous things. " So did you get what you were looking for?" I said optimistically. "To be honest Corry I didn't even find the wardrobe section." A bit of my soul died knowing I was going to have to trudge back through there and take him to his destination. I knew exactly where it was - play as day I envisioned it: behind the kids section which was right by the food court, I laid the floor plan out in my mind as if it was a race for time. " I know where it is, stay close and follow me. Its going to be hard going back through here, its built like a one way street" So I get my mind right, have Jordan in the cart and we trudge through. Imagine me snaking this cart through one-way traffic in Ikea, people look at me like I'm the crazy one, perhaps I truly am. I could have just drawn him a map and sent him on his own, but I flashback to how upset I was when I did it alone so I just toughed it out and got Frodo to his destination, behold the land of wardrobes. I went and plopped down on one of beanbags in the bed section and left him to his decisions. As Jordan and I were slowly wasting away on these fantastic bean bags I saw some of the familiar couples that entered Ikea the same time we did. This time there were not all lovey dovey walking hand in hand they were frustrated, arguing, some hands crossed across the front as if shut down from the whole conversation. And I laugh to myself- this place is a killer of relationships if you don't have a plan. Don't get me wrong its nice to walk through and imagine the what ifs in your shared space, but when its time to get down to business, you need to have a written out list of what you want and colors, go online and put it in your cart and print out the parcel sections so that when you walk in there you have the mind set of get in and get out and no one get hurts, otherwise you come out thinking WTH just happened to me, I transformed into some time of Ork from mordoor ready to tear up some shit and the person I walked in with and forgot what the main objective was. It’s always about having a plan so things don't go awry.

Anyway I’m waiting for my buddy to make his choices and then he summons me to help him. Apparently he liked a few things but has no idea about what to get. This is why I’m happy they actually have fully assembled wardrobes put together and kitted out. If you like what you see you simply get the paper and it has the list of what is needed and locations. This poor soul couldn't decide on what to get in the end and I told him if he got something to small his wife would not be happy- I already know because what he showed me I would have pitched a fit, if you have the room and money, get it right the first time so you don't have to relive this moment a month from now. So we gather the information and now quickly try to maneuver back down to packaging purgatory. I explain the system to him and we get to work. Since there are two of us we move quickly and tick each item off the list. Meanwhile the dragon is whining in the cart about wanting to get out and being hungry and bored, all the things that I feel deep in my heart as well but I know I can't say that because I’m helping a friend out. So we gather these last remaining parcels and load them onto the cart, and wheel them toward the checkout line. I begin to do the happy dance inside as we are nearing the end of our journey- but then I remember delivery and glance over to that part of the store and see a long line and this huge banner. It read something in French about this great delivery deal that actually ends today where you get delivery* for one euro and possibly same day. I put the asterisk on the delivery because I will give more detail on that later. So I go self-service check out and pay for my few items while my companion is forced to wait in the never-ending line to check out. The look on his face is that of Atreyu's horse in the never ending story getting sucked into the tar pit or what ever that was, you know what I mean though, it’s toward the end of the movie but the saddest part of the movie. I tell you the look of defeat is a heart-wrenching thing. But I assured him we are almost there.

From there I got in the delivery line to help my buddy get ahead. And as suspected there was no rhyme or reason to this line as well. People scattered everywhere so I just jumped behind someone and form something out of chaos and then the line truly forms. I wait for about 20 min and the line isn't really moving, I glance back and my buddy is still getting checked out and I see boxes tilted here and there. I tell you it never ends, and he is scratching his head possibly in disbelief. Finally my line is moving and he finally makes his way over explaining how the guy wouldn't help him take the boxes off the cart and he asked for the manager and the manager said that the cashier has the option to help him. Seriously what kind of customer service is that???? Lucky it wasn't me because I would have raised serious hell after being put through all that fuckery, yes ladies and gents I said fuckery at its finest.

Needless to say we get through delivery and they say they will deliver* before midnight that night or Monday morning. There goes that asterisk again. Well Lets flash forward to the end of our tale. Yes so Frodo and Sam escape the clutches of mordoor but not without one last blow to the ego. So after enduring all of that I take my buddy home and we chat and laugh about the whole story with his wife while the kids play. We have dinner together. I leave about 10:30 and just as I’m leaving the delivery shows up. Well Ill be damned it actually came in the same day!!! So this is where the delivery asterisk comes into play. Apparently as I’m walking out the door the delivery guy tells my buddy that he can only leave parcels at the outside door and not help carry them in, I think this is what the one euro delivery gets you. I think that was the last blow to poor Frodo’s ego, seriously what is the point of all that if you are just going to leave it at the door and not bring it in. We could have done all of that. So I tell the sleepy dragon to go back inside and lay down while I help carry packages inside. After it’s all said and done, all parcels delivered and everyone just a bit bruised but a bit wiser from the episode. I swear that place; as much as I love their stuff is a soul stealer, something in the air that takes it out of you by the time you get to the exit. 

Till the next time . . . . .