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| - Needing to replace a good but out of style dresser, and having seen a nice looking one at a friend's, who said hers was from Ikea, we were keen to have a similar one. We went on-line and found one in red, for very little money.
We were armed with the item number, confident we would make a strategic strike and be out in fewer than twenty minutes.
The regular shopping drill we all know, "find the thing you want, take it to the register, pay and exit", does not apply here. Acres upon acres of jammed- packed merchandise, much of it attractive, I must confess, was clumped to avoid seeing where it was you wanted to go. At the beginning there had been a wall with a directional sign and lines showing the route to specific categories. Once out of sight of the sign, we might as well have been dropped into Botswana.
In order to go to the bedroom section (I use the term loosely-think bedroom acre),
you are forced to walk a blue line indicated by arrows, through a dizzying array of merchandise for a home's every nook and cranny.
We hesitantly joined the long shuffling snake of adults and cacophonous kids.
Two "helpers", a misnomer if I ever heard one, pointed us onward. At last the furniture began to look appropriate for nighttime. A blister had begun on my right foot. We spotted the dresser along the wall. It was attractive and cheap. Mission accomplished. Oh, no, my foolish one...
We now had to go to the warehouse section of the giant box to find the correct aisle and bin number where they stored the corresponding item. I thought we'd been in the warehouse section, but the arrangement kept unfolding. This shouldn't be too difficult for two adults with graduate degrees, right? I ignored the blister on my toe and the new one forming on my heel, and trudged on.
To find the warehouse section, we should have packed a lunch and flares. Finally, I spotted one of those scarce "helpers". She said we were almost there. Five minutes more of walking found us at the "aisle and bin" section. We unfolded our little paper with the magic numbers on it and honed in. There was the aisle, and down the length of the corridor was the elusive bin. We almost collapsed with joy until we saw there was nothing at all in the marked bin.
I spotted one of those so called helpers and thrust the item info. into his hand.
He took one look at the secret code at the bottom of our piece of paper and said, "The computer has the wrong bin and aisle number. It's been wrong for a year and a half. Your item is right over there". He pointed a few feet from where we were standing.
He cautioned that the dresser came in two boxes, and that no one ever reads the signs that told them how easy the process was. His attitude was one of disdain. If he'd so much as wagged his finger, it would have been justification to poke out his eyes, which were under his electric green Mohawk and multiple eyebrow piercings. He said he was the warehouse manager.
Pushing our giant cart with the two boxes, with my limping, we made our way to the sprawling check out section, too exhausted and hungry after our wandering the hinterlands for almost two hours, to do anything but wait in line and hand our charge card to the surly, teenage boy who shoved the receipt at us and barked, " This one has a 90 day return policy". He never looked up.
Return? Here? Good luck with that I thought.
While most of the world watched the Super Bowl, my husband listened to the game out in the garage. The opened boxes revealed what looked like the aftermath of a pipe bomb explosion. For three hours he assembled the 100+ pieces of the dresser, referring to the wordless, faceless, stick figure directions. By this time, the figures were a good likeness of an Ikea customer.
My husband needed a cocktail. I vowed to limit any further furniture shopping to Roche Bobois. Bargains be darned!
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