Ikea. We've all been there and if you're like me, every time you venture there you vow that that will be the last time...until that damned catalogue entices you back again for some more punishment. If only life could be like an Ikea catalogue..I mean, what utter perfection would it be to have your garage looking like the "Gorm" page. Even their bookcases are perfect - with every book the same height and with the same coloured spine. All matching. All co-ordinated. All perfect.
I once got so intoxicated with the PAX wardrobes on show in the Ikea catalogue, with the belts in their special belt compartment and everything looking so tidy and perfect that I convinced my husband that renovating our wardrobe would be on par to achieving world peace. So, we measured everything, planned our purchase, wrote down all the required item numbers and made our way to the store.
How the Swedish guy who owns Ikea ever made any money is a mystery to me...From the get-go, the Ikea experience is one fraught with frustration. You can't get to one particular department without first being forced to see every other display on offer...it's like decorating via hostage-tactical warfare. Don't want to look through 5 different kitchen designs? Too bad...you have to follow their maze of displays to get to the end. This is why I give my daughter a biscuit to eat when we go there, so if it all gets too much I can follow the crumb trail back to the entrance.
Once you've navigated the rabbit warren of showrooms you get to the self serve warehouse. I love the way the sign says "we don't want you to hurt yourself. If something is heavy, please ask one of our staff who will be only too happy to help". Staff? What staff? Have you EVER seen a staff member at Ikea? I have seen the occasional blue shirted person strolling around, but they're always on a mission with that "do not disturb me, I'm on very important business" look on their face.
You can spend thousands of dollars on all the co-ordinated parts to build a big wall unit at Ikea, but if they're out of stock of the one little shelf that binds the whole thing together, you're out of luck. They don't have a back-order system for most of their stock and they can't tell you when or even IF an item is coming back into stock, so you can either put everything back on the shelf and go home or buy all the available items and hope and pray that that one shelf will be there next week. Their online stocktake system is supposed to avoid this problem, but judging by the customer going psycho on the weekend, I'm guessing this still can be an issue.
Despite these frustrations, I still end up spending far too much at Ikea. Do you ever go there with the aim of buying one item and up spending over $500? This happens to me every time. Wow, check out that vase...so cheap! Forget the fact I already have 18 unused other vases at home - must get this other one to add to the collection. There are some things, however, that even I won't buy, no matter how cheap they are... What's with Ikea's kids cuddly toys? No standard bears and dolls here - they have the walrus and moose. Swedish kids ideas of cute and cuddly must be different to mine. Most of their toys have that "what the fuck is that thing?" vibe. Last weekend I was looking at this thing in the kids department that sits there and lights up. I asked Stu, "what does that do?", to which he replied "it sits and lights up"..."oh..." Righteo then...I mean, who's buying this stuff? I think this stuff appeals to the Montessori type mother who has an inbuilt aversion to anything with a Fisher Price label on it. If you ask me, half the 'toys' look like they were designed by some crack smoking Swedish guy who submitted his design as a joke.
Another thing for the WTF file was the pot pourri they were selling. I mean, isn't Ikea supposed to be the purveyor of all things sleek and modern? I haven't seen artificially coloured pot pourri since 1985, and yet there's packets of it for sale at our local Ikea.
But all this weirdo stuff aside, I still manage to spend loads of cash there. It's the shelving/storage things that keep me coming back. Nobody does storage like Ikea. It's ironic, because from everything I've seen of the Swedish/Danish/Nordic lifestyle, people there have very few "things" and houses operate on a "less is more" basis, but not us. We have so much stuff and there's never enough storage to store it all. I harbour a secret crush on the guy (or girl), who designed the Expedit storage cubey thing. We have several of these in our house and they are awesome. Those little Branas baskets can hide untold piles of crap. There's even a special section on photobucket for people to show off their Expedit unit and how they choose to decorate it. One person has painted each individual box a different colour and set these up as individual little dolls house type worlds with little figures living in them...Forget the United Nations...it could be possible that this one shelving unit could be the answer to uniting the world - we can all share our Expedit decorating tips and unite together for world peace.
Getting the Expedit box into your car is a whole other adventure. Have you ever stood at the car loading bay at Ikea and listened to the conversations taking
place around you? Last weekend, as I minded the trolleys and Stu went to get the car, I couldn't help but eavesdrop on this couple nearby who were arguing about getting their stuff into their car. Here's this burley guy, trying to cram several large boxes into his small Holden Barina. His partner was grumbling at him "that's never going to fit...it's too long...it's too wide...watch out you'll break it...I told you it wouldn't fit". With each naggy comment you could see his brain thinking "I'm going to shove this Billy bookcase right up your..."
Whatever you go there for...the swedish meatballs, the 'alternative' toys, the chance to lay around in a showroom bed all day without anyone telling you to move along...Ikea is a rite of passage for us all. Now if you excuse me, I have a date with an allen key...
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
That bloody queue
We’ve all had to have one...a blood test that is, and it’s not as though they’re the most pleasant things on Earth to have to experience, but what makes it total agony is the wait. Our local pathology collection clinic opens on Saturday mornings from 9am until 12 noon. To be seen before 10am, you really have to have joined the queue outside the clinic door before 8.45am. I always get lulled into a false sense of security as I’m driving up the road towards the clinic, thinking “oh, I’ve got five minutes to spare, perfect” and then I see it...the “outside queue”, queuing up outside, waiting for the doors to open at 9am. This is usually filled with older people and my sympathy for them, having to do this regularly for health reasons is outweighed by my inner whinge that I’m already at least fifth in line.
The external door finally opens at 9am and we all enter the premises, trying to look as though we’re cool, calm and collected with our manners intact, when in reality we’re trying to walk as fast as physically possible without actually breaking into a run, to get the numbered ticket on the desk that will determine our place in the real queue. This can be the time when being the only person in the outside line who hasn’t had a hip replacement can be a bonus...but I always do the right thing and let those who were there before me go first (even though deep down I want to stab them all, as I do a quick head count and add up 5-10 minutes per person and realise I’m in for a long wait).
Our clinic has about 8 chairs to sit on and if you’re lucky enough to get a seat, don’t leave it for any reason. Dying to pee? Forget it...hold it in or you’ll lose your seat and have to stand. And just when you thought you were relatively safe with your number “6” card in your hand, thinking “6th in line isn’t that bad”...you sit and watch as person after person comes in for the 2 hour glucose tolerance test (for diabetes) and jumps the queue. Today I was in such a hurry and had already been waiting half an hour when the pathology lady called out “any more glucose tests?” and I swear if one more pregnant woman had have walked in the door at that point I was going to scream. All of a sudden, 6th place became 13th place as 7 people, yes 7 people went in before me to have the first of their 3 diabetes blood tests. I started lamenting the lack of exercise and poor food choices our society has made over the past few decades that has gotten us into this predicament...me having to be bumped out of 6th place at the pathology clinic!!!
The man sitting next to me this morning had the number 9 ticket. He turned it upside down at one point and I was thinking “oh no you don’t, old man....you and I both know that that’s a 9 and not a 6 so don’t even think about trying to fake your way in before me”...oh the paranoia in my mind. Then we had the people strolling in late (9.05am) who wanted to sweet talk their way ahead in the queue to the lady at the desk ...”um...I have to be out of here by 9.30am as I have to be someplace important...” Don’t you just want to bash these people? We’re ALL important. We’ve ALL got important stuff to do. Take a number, stand over there and next time come at 8.30am.
I don’t know what comes over me sometimes at these places. I am either Jekyl or Hyde. Either really relaxed, happy to read the 15 year old Women’s Weekly magazine featuring Nicole Kidman on the cover with long bright red curly hair and reading all about how she’s been dating Tom Cruise; happy to chat to the person next to me, “Oh, that green stuff is awful to drink, isn’t it?...Is this your first baby?....Yes, it has been really cold lately” OR I’m a psychotic mental case, intolerant of anything and everything. Today my mood was the latter and at one point the pathology lady was trying to fax the paperwork through to whoever they fax it through to and she had clearly typed in the wrong number as someone was answering the call and then hanging up. It took every ounce of my strength to not jump over that desk and fax it through myself. I’m surprised I didn’t offer to jab myself with the needle and collect the blood for her to save time. But despite my inner turmoil, I smiled at everyone, offered my seat to all the pregnant ladies and made polite chit chat with the staff as they went about their business.
When I stop and think about it, I’m so lucky to only have to go through this every now and then. I pity the person whose life is a constant stream of medical appointments and the inevitable queues that befall them. I figure if I hear a news story where they say, “a woman went crazy today, murdering everyone around them at a local pathology clinic” I’ll at some level understand where they were coming from.
The external door finally opens at 9am and we all enter the premises, trying to look as though we’re cool, calm and collected with our manners intact, when in reality we’re trying to walk as fast as physically possible without actually breaking into a run, to get the numbered ticket on the desk that will determine our place in the real queue. This can be the time when being the only person in the outside line who hasn’t had a hip replacement can be a bonus...but I always do the right thing and let those who were there before me go first (even though deep down I want to stab them all, as I do a quick head count and add up 5-10 minutes per person and realise I’m in for a long wait).
Our clinic has about 8 chairs to sit on and if you’re lucky enough to get a seat, don’t leave it for any reason. Dying to pee? Forget it...hold it in or you’ll lose your seat and have to stand. And just when you thought you were relatively safe with your number “6” card in your hand, thinking “6th in line isn’t that bad”...you sit and watch as person after person comes in for the 2 hour glucose tolerance test (for diabetes) and jumps the queue. Today I was in such a hurry and had already been waiting half an hour when the pathology lady called out “any more glucose tests?” and I swear if one more pregnant woman had have walked in the door at that point I was going to scream. All of a sudden, 6th place became 13th place as 7 people, yes 7 people went in before me to have the first of their 3 diabetes blood tests. I started lamenting the lack of exercise and poor food choices our society has made over the past few decades that has gotten us into this predicament...me having to be bumped out of 6th place at the pathology clinic!!!
The man sitting next to me this morning had the number 9 ticket. He turned it upside down at one point and I was thinking “oh no you don’t, old man....you and I both know that that’s a 9 and not a 6 so don’t even think about trying to fake your way in before me”...oh the paranoia in my mind. Then we had the people strolling in late (9.05am) who wanted to sweet talk their way ahead in the queue to the lady at the desk ...”um...I have to be out of here by 9.30am as I have to be someplace important...” Don’t you just want to bash these people? We’re ALL important. We’ve ALL got important stuff to do. Take a number, stand over there and next time come at 8.30am.
I don’t know what comes over me sometimes at these places. I am either Jekyl or Hyde. Either really relaxed, happy to read the 15 year old Women’s Weekly magazine featuring Nicole Kidman on the cover with long bright red curly hair and reading all about how she’s been dating Tom Cruise; happy to chat to the person next to me, “Oh, that green stuff is awful to drink, isn’t it?...Is this your first baby?....Yes, it has been really cold lately” OR I’m a psychotic mental case, intolerant of anything and everything. Today my mood was the latter and at one point the pathology lady was trying to fax the paperwork through to whoever they fax it through to and she had clearly typed in the wrong number as someone was answering the call and then hanging up. It took every ounce of my strength to not jump over that desk and fax it through myself. I’m surprised I didn’t offer to jab myself with the needle and collect the blood for her to save time. But despite my inner turmoil, I smiled at everyone, offered my seat to all the pregnant ladies and made polite chit chat with the staff as they went about their business.
When I stop and think about it, I’m so lucky to only have to go through this every now and then. I pity the person whose life is a constant stream of medical appointments and the inevitable queues that befall them. I figure if I hear a news story where they say, “a woman went crazy today, murdering everyone around them at a local pathology clinic” I’ll at some level understand where they were coming from.
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