August 23, 2009

The Time Suck That Is IKEA

Mr. BBM flew home Thursday night on the red-eye from California and I got a sitter for Friday afternoon and evening. Big dinner out? Romantic night at home?

Not quite.

We went to IKEA.

We arrived at IKEA around 2:30 p.m. and I figured we'd be home in plenty of time to meet our friends at Happy Hour at 6 p.m.

When 6 p.m. rolled around, we were sitting in the cafeteria at IKEA, nursing two very grumpy attitudes because we had still not decided on what we were getting.

Despite the fact that I had spent hours measuring the playroom/office/extra guest room, despite the fact that I had spent the entire morning on the IKEA room planner website, we were still undecided. Mr. BBM and I made it our mission to make the IKEA experience a bit more real. So instead of a beautiful display room featuring only furniture that looked like it was lived in, we made sure it was more realistic as we sat on the sofa's and argued over what we were going to get and how much we were going to spend.

Once Mr. BBM had some food in his stomach, however, his mood changed and we were on a roll. . . literally.

If you've been to IKEA for larger items, then you know that IKEA believes in making their carts with four wheels that spin 360 degrees to mess with people. When you load those carts up with mounds of bookshelves, desk legs, desk tops and extender shelves, you've got one serious challenge on your hands.

I couldn't stop cracking up laughing at Mr. BBM whose cart only seemed to want to go left; and then he couldn't stop laughing at me and telling me how ridiculous I looked trying to push the cart at a reasonable speed and then slow up before running someone over with about 500 lbs. of bookshelves. It's not easy. You basically have to pretend you're a stubborn dog and straighten your legs and decide you won't move. Sometimes you move anyway.

The biggest joke of the night was that we were at about twice what we had budgeted and Mr. BBM held up the window squeegee that he had grabbed at the price of $1 and said he thought we should put it back to save money.

After getting through self-checkout (Seriously, IKEA? Cheap much?), we made it into the elevators and down to the parking garage only to argue for a good 30 minutes about how to load the van.

Me: You're going to have to pull the center seat out.
Mr. BBM: I can't. It won't come out.
Me: Well, it does so it's going to have to come out if we're going to get this stuff home.
Mr. BBM: Well it doesn't COME out.
Me: (Mumbles under breath and proceeds to pull the center seat out in exactly 10 seconds.) Then I'll do it. Freaking men.
Mr. BBM: Well it wouldn't come out for me.
Me: Whatever.

He then realized the Tetris master that I am and allowed me to direct how we were going to get the rest of the stuff in the car. We drove about 10 mph around corners and said silent prayers the whole way home that our tires wouldn't completely blow out on the way home since we knew we had exceeded the weight limit by about a ton.

After spending the ENTIRE day on Saturday building, including removing all the baseboard trim from one entire wall, we finished up last night around midnight, hidden cabinet lighting included.

Tomorrow, Mr. BBM has to go back to IKEA to return cabinet lights that didn't work and exchange them for more cabinet doors which we decided are a must have for the lower kid-friendly shelves.

I did not know that putting in a built-in type bookshelf look in the extra room would result in a major and massive reorganization of the entire house, but it did.

Tonight, Lil C's room is completely organized. Weebles are with weebles and trains are with trains. Most importantly, all her dirty clothes that she stashed in the back of her closet is now in the laundry. It feels good to get organized. It feels even better to know that Idon't have to return to the time suck that is IKEA for a very long time.

***Over the weekend, my Love your Body entry got a #2 on it. I was in the top 50 the last time I looked and that is largely because of you, my awesome readers and voters. Please continue to click here and vote for me until the contest ends. You can vote once per day! Thanks so much!!!