IKEA

I don't know where to start today. I have so many lame ideas to bore you with, that I don't know which one has the most, least potential. Lets throw a dart and see where it sticks... IKEA it is!

The day after Thanksgiving Mandy and I went early morning shopping. Came home took a nap. We had never been there, so I then suggested IKEA. Gotta see what all the hullabaloo is about right? If all the other sheep are bleating about something, you gotta see the experience so you can bleat about it too. Here I go... BaAaAaAahH!

Things look fairly normal on the outside. Giant blue building that says IKEA on it. I've seen similar. They usually say Costco or Sam's Club on them. No big whoop. Entering we found a day care and free lockers for bulky items that you might not want to haul around the store. Did they think I was going to Sweden to look at this stuff? Pfffft! I'm no rookie. 45 minutes tops we were going to be out of there. I am not the dilly dally sort. I walk in. See what I want. Buy it. Go home. I know the game. The longer I am in a store, the more expensive it is to get out.

We rode the escalator up. I found maps, carts and a living room set up like I imagine you would see on a TV set. This living room was full of people. There were people stretched out on the couch, lounging in chairs and plopped in lounge chairs. They were all watching TV. Maybe they thought they lived there. I don't know. I swear there was a woman baking in the kitchen and another serving hors devours. "This is a strange introduction" I thought.

On the other side of the wall from the IKEA squatters was another living room set up. I wouldn't say I really have a style, a particular genre of design that I completely subscribe to, but I suddenly realized I liked a large portion of what I saw. The kids came running into this little room and bounced on the couches. I started slowly gazing around the room at each item. looking at the price, reading about everything. I spent a good 10 minutes in the first room. The kids busied themselves bouncing on every couch testing for comfort and deeming each one their new favorite based on merits of squishiness. Shelby came running by, tripped on a rug and fell right on her face, narrowly missing a coffee table with her head by a few hair widths, bounced up and said "I'm OK!" off to test the next couch.

We spent the next 2 hours snaking through the displays. The kids tested every chair, bed, pillow, sheet, door, surface, texture and color, labeling each one with their different levels of approval. The ones that met the highest standards were brought to our attention. "Mom! Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, DAD, dad, dad, dad, dad, mom, dad, mom, dad, mom!" Until we relented "WHAT??????" "Um, look at this. This is so awesome!"

Finally we got to the end. There was a woman there painting faces and making balloons for the kids. Walker had her paint flames on his face and make him a monkey balloon. As we all know, fire is cool and monkeys are funny. Shelby got a butterfly painted on her face and got a cat balloon. The cat had a mouse in it's paws, but Shelby insisted it was a tiny baby cat that was pink, had big cute ears and had a long skinny tail. It was her balloon, I figured she could think what she wanted. Besides, my interpretation was so barbaric.

The kids were getting hungry. We decided to go cafe that was located downstairs. There was one upstairs but had stuff like meatballs and salad that didn't meet the approval ratings of the kids. We took the elevator down and I realized something. We had only seen half of the store. The upstairs. There was still an entire level that we had not seen. We double timed it, sped past the kitchen stuff, past the group of people that were actually Swedish. One of them pointed to something and sounding just like the Swedish Chef on the Muppet Show said "Yah! a gorkensporgen!" and they all laughed. One of the men from the group stepped forward and holding his arms out in front of him in a hoop shape like he was lugging an invisible 55 gallon barrel, and repeated "Yah! Gorkensporgen!" as he laughed. We continued on to the checkout stands making the second half of the store in one hour. Start to finish 3 hours.

At the cafe we bought the kids a hot dog meal that was only $2 for 2 hot dogs, bag of chips and a drink and a cinnamon roll that was only $1. Now here was my favorite part (other than the Swedes laughing about the gorkensporgen) the meal came to $3 even. Either they didn't charge me tax or they have figured that into the cost. My brain loves even dollar amounts. That's why I spend the extra 30 seconds meticulously jabbing the gas pump trigger until I get a nice even dollar amount. That' seemed just like something IKEA would do. Make a nice clean dollar amount, because it is simple and who really wants to search through their pockets for 32 cents for a gorkensporgen?