There is now so much baby stuff in K___'s wardrobe that she now has no space for her own clothes in there. As a result of this, we decided to buy a new chest of drawers. When we got the bed, we'd already decided that we wanted the complimentary furniture, but had anticipated waiting a while before we did it. However, with storage at a premium in our place, we needed something and soon.
Unfortunately, this necessitated a trip to Ikea. I hate Ikea. Not because of their products, you understand, but because I hate the shop itself. Everything about an Ikea store seems designed to aggravate me personally.
I dislike the complete disorientation that completely fails to be mitigated by their 'maps'. I am normally pretty good at spatial orientation. Put me in front of an IQ test that asks you to imagine how a 3d shape looks from another direction, I can do it. I can read maps. I can usually drive somewhere once and find my way back without a map months and months later. Not in Ikea. I have a notion that Ikea is actually made up of departments that shift around when you're not looking. If you've seen the inventive and thoroughly splendid low-budget horror movie Cube, now you know where they got the idea from. It was Ikea.
I dislike that it's impossible to go straight to the thing you want to buy and then leave.
I dislike the fact that it's full of shuffling imbeciles and it's impossible to walk at a reasonable speed or in a straight line. I can totally understand how George A Romero was prompted to write Dawn of the Dead, where the zombies in the mall are a satire of mass consumerism. (Not entirely sure how come I've referenced two horror movies in one piece, given I don't actually watch that many...)
I actually felt decidedly out of sorts by the time I'd been in there for about 20 minutes. I don't know whether it's the spatial disorientation or what it is, but it has happened before. I also find that spending any time in a supermarket will give me a headache, so maybe there's some particular feature of shops that I react to subconsciously. I've speculated whether it's neon lighting and the loss of so much of my hearing range in the constant low-level hum of freezers and air conditioning units. But I may be utterly wrong. It may be completely psychosomatic. Whatever it is, some shops genuinely make me feel odd.
Anyway, eventually we got the two boxes out and loaded into the car with the cost of just the two hernias. All that remained - bar the journey home - was putting the thing together. K___ and I remarked that all they need to do is put a link to decent online instructions, where the pictures are large enough to be seen and actually bear some relationship to the pieces in the packs. This would be too obvious, as we soon discovered upon opening up the boxes. We worked together. I did most of the assembly (and obviously all the lugging around) and K___ took care of the instructions. This may just have been to stop me turning into the star of the as-yet-unmade budget horror feature 'Sweary DIY Twat Monster'. It worked well and the new (and considerably larger-looking than it had appeared in the shop) set of drawers was up and in position.
The next night K___ sorted out the baby stuff into the various drawers, tops in one drawer, bottoms in another, misc. baby paraphernalia in a third etc. so it's all worked out fine. Just hope I don't have to go back to Ikea soon.
It's horrific.
Unfortunately, this necessitated a trip to Ikea. I hate Ikea. Not because of their products, you understand, but because I hate the shop itself. Everything about an Ikea store seems designed to aggravate me personally.
I dislike the complete disorientation that completely fails to be mitigated by their 'maps'. I am normally pretty good at spatial orientation. Put me in front of an IQ test that asks you to imagine how a 3d shape looks from another direction, I can do it. I can read maps. I can usually drive somewhere once and find my way back without a map months and months later. Not in Ikea. I have a notion that Ikea is actually made up of departments that shift around when you're not looking. If you've seen the inventive and thoroughly splendid low-budget horror movie Cube, now you know where they got the idea from. It was Ikea.
I dislike that it's impossible to go straight to the thing you want to buy and then leave.
I dislike the fact that it's full of shuffling imbeciles and it's impossible to walk at a reasonable speed or in a straight line. I can totally understand how George A Romero was prompted to write Dawn of the Dead, where the zombies in the mall are a satire of mass consumerism. (Not entirely sure how come I've referenced two horror movies in one piece, given I don't actually watch that many...)
I actually felt decidedly out of sorts by the time I'd been in there for about 20 minutes. I don't know whether it's the spatial disorientation or what it is, but it has happened before. I also find that spending any time in a supermarket will give me a headache, so maybe there's some particular feature of shops that I react to subconsciously. I've speculated whether it's neon lighting and the loss of so much of my hearing range in the constant low-level hum of freezers and air conditioning units. But I may be utterly wrong. It may be completely psychosomatic. Whatever it is, some shops genuinely make me feel odd.
Anyway, eventually we got the two boxes out and loaded into the car with the cost of just the two hernias. All that remained - bar the journey home - was putting the thing together. K___ and I remarked that all they need to do is put a link to decent online instructions, where the pictures are large enough to be seen and actually bear some relationship to the pieces in the packs. This would be too obvious, as we soon discovered upon opening up the boxes. We worked together. I did most of the assembly (and obviously all the lugging around) and K___ took care of the instructions. This may just have been to stop me turning into the star of the as-yet-unmade budget horror feature 'Sweary DIY Twat Monster'. It worked well and the new (and considerably larger-looking than it had appeared in the shop) set of drawers was up and in position.
The next night K___ sorted out the baby stuff into the various drawers, tops in one drawer, bottoms in another, misc. baby paraphernalia in a third etc. so it's all worked out fine. Just hope I don't have to go back to Ikea soon.
It's horrific.
I'm in total agreement with you, yes, although I find IKEA bearable if I know exactly what I am going to buy. I deeply resent the lack of windows and shortcuts and really don't understand why anyone would wake up on a Bank Holiday Monday and think 'What shall I do today? I know, I'll drive to Ikea and buy a couple of glasses and some tealights.'
ReplyDeleteAs for the baby stuff overflowing, imagine what it will be like when you start getting the toys in...
Lisa
x
You should have seen the Edinburgh Ikea yesterday. It was Sunday and the rain was coming down in stair-rods. Bouncing off the car park. Queues for everything. There is something terribly depressing about it. People must wake up and say "Hey its raining - how shall we entertain ourselves? - I know, lets go to Ikea". I have never seen so many angry people in one place. Car park rage, shop rage, even waiting for the loo rage. The guy on the till even asked if we were angry about the weather. (we weren't). It was extremely unpleasant and not something I will be repeating in a hurry.
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