Ikea

September 24, 2009 | Filed Under Main | 3 Comments

I went home for four days and went to Ikea three times. Does that sound logical? Flew 6,000 miles – through a number of times zones – to make the half hour/forty minute each way drive down the Jersey Turnpike three times. And since it is right next to the airport, you can almost look on it as if I spent nearly half my time home at the Newark International Liberty Hallelujah God-Bless-America Airport.

Yet I saw no football and only drank two beers. I could cry…

However, it was all for a good cause. On Saturday morning, I picked up the cargo van I had reserved and my son Chris and I went out to buy new furniture for his bedroom. And frankly – it was necessary. Surprisingly, he is nearly twenty years old (don’t ask me how) and his bed sits on a fold-up frame and each of his dressers are something Kerry and I had in our bedrooms when we were kids. And since occasionally he has friends over and isn’t living off campus in some loft on the lower Eastside that he’s paying for (yet), he really wanted something that matched and looked nice. Fair enough. Happy Birthday!

The shopping was fun and it was great to hang out with him. I’ve never watched him shop before. I haven’t seen him much at all during these weird years. He’s growing up and that’s a different dynamic. One I would like to be more a part of. Plus – I wouldn’t have to lift boxes by myself. We picked out two dressers, a bed frame and three book shelves (VERY heavy stuff). Then we made it home in time for him to shower and get to work. Sunday was the big Construction Day… after Chris cleaned out his room. Which took a good three hours since he had not even BEGUN to prepare for the onslaught of new furniture. It was three o’clock before we even opened a box. I thought we would start with the bed frame because it seemed simple and I could move the box-spring and mattress out of the hall. We made it all the way to the last page of the instructions… when we noticed this big piece missing. The center support did not come with the box.

And of course there was only one thing to do at 4pm on a Sunday in the middle of a piece of furniture – run back to Ikea to get the part. So – I jumped in my car. MY car. My 1993 Saturn SL1 which has been sitting in the driveway right where I left it three months ago. This is an old car – the first I ever bought with a car loan – but it is very reliable. Even drove it to Maine and back in 2005. I brushed the leaves and twigs off and disengaged the cobwebs around the door and took off. I stopped once to drop in some gas and again to wash three months of weather off the windows.

I must say that I did notice the battery light was on. But the Saturn had a number of idiot lights and one more didn’t phase me. I just figured it was mad at me for not taking it out more often. However, just before I hit Elizabeth, the radio started to cut out. The windshield wipers moved very slowly. Then the radio went dark… which I figured was a bad thing. I made it to the exit just as the gages started to flail about. Through the toll booth – I started praying. But I hit the red light at the top of the street toward Ikea and my little Saturn hit the wall and stopped dead. At least I was off the highway.

I had called home earlier to say this might be my fate, so Kerry was already in touch with AAA. Sitting off on the side of the road, I waited for the tow truck as planes flew overhead and the sun started to fall. While sitting in the tow truck an hour or so later, I saw no less than four billboards with the face of a cute little girl, an 800 number and a suggestion that you donate your used car. Time can be a harsh mistress – whether you’re a car or a collie.

Of course, the mission was not complete. Chris put together the rest of the furniture on his own (and they don’t seem to need an ‘allen-wrench’ anymore). But Kerry and I drove back out to find that we have to buy the center piece separately.

For $10.00.

Read that last line carefully. My tolls almost came to that. Ikea killed my car.

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3 comments so far
  1. Mike September 24, 2009 10:05 am

    That should be a song title…”Ikea killed my car”. Sort of like “Video killed the Radio Star”, except with more attitude. But that is how these stores screw you, nothing is ever complete when you buy it. Thus, I always buy complete and assembled and make them deliver it. I made Home Depot assemble my wheelbarrow before I would bring it home. Now, that might just be me being lazy, but I look at it as making sure everything is complete before I take it home.

  2. kerry September 24, 2009 1:31 pm

    I maintain it was not Ikea, but your insistence that the old man could run one more marathon…

  3. Bowmar Brain September 28, 2009 5:47 am

    Ikea killed my Saturn — wasn’t that the follow-up to Thomas Dolby’s Aliens Ate My Buick?