gfrancie | meatballs

Oh sweet Jesus. I think the trip to Southcenter and the visit to IKEA took ten years off of my life. The way some people feel about the holidays I feel about going to IKEA. "Thank God it only is a problem once a year."
We need a new sofa. We have been saying this for about a year. We would go and casually look at sofas and never make any decision. None. Because we aren't good at making decisions and prefer handing the task off to one another like a freaking hot potato. "No you do it." "No you."
Finally someone lost patience and said, "dammit we are getting a sofa."
Really the IKEA catalog came in the mail and we started looking at stuff and decided to just get the task over with.

We went to one furniture store first but didn't find anything we liked. Most of it looked like it belonged in an office waiting room. I half-expected a sales rep named Chad or Kellie to be sitting on the sofa, waiting to give out free samples of some ointment or maybe free pens.
So we made our way to IKEA. There never ever seems to be any direct way to enter the compound of blue and yellow. Round and round you go where you stop nobody knows.
It was crowded. (as usual) and like roller derby with strollers. Senor Onion and I should have worn helmets and sparkly clothing. I would be known as Mean Mummy Jenner and he would be The Killer Onion. The most feared stroller derby players west of the Mississippi.
Anyhow... back to sofas. Mr. Jenner and I looked at two models and began to discuss the merits and irritations of the two. I was concerned about having such a freaking big sofa in the living room. We wandered into a tangent about how guys seem to have giant furniture. I began to recall boyfriends who had enormous sofas and chairs. It's not a penis thing apparently. Mr. Jenner said, "well what is the point of having a room if you can't fill it up."
Yes.
Well.
That didn't make any sense to me but whatever. I suppose it is like trying to explain to Mr. Jenner why I need several purses or multiple pairs of shoes that may look alike but are different.
We decided on a sofa. It was a bit of a compromise in a sense. We get the large sofa but we will eventually replace the current giant chair that is in the living room with two smaller chairs in hopes of creating a bit of balance. Again this may not make much sense to other people but it works in our skewed world.
Mr. Jenner won 100 awesome points when it turned out the sofa we chose was 100 dollars less than advertised.
Mr. Jenner A+++++ would marry again!!!11!!
Then it was back to the stroller derby.
Outta mah way. Me and The Killer Onion have a date in IKEA jr to look at storage. Vroom Vroom!!!
Picked up a bright green box to hold his growing collection of toys and spatulas. Senor onion likes my le creuset spatula. My Baby rolls sophisticated. yo.
Then we went to kitchen storage where I picked up canisters and containers galore because a girl likes to pretend she is organized. Martha Stewart would be proud.
We continued on the scary maze of IKEA. I think I saw the minotaur in lighting. Or someone just wears their muttonchops in a seriously fierce fashion.
Then? Oh man...the hard part. Picking up a freaking sofa. Stupid Swedish and their, "do it yourself" attitude. We had to get this giganto sofa onto the cart. A cart I might add that has no breaks. Maybe the Swedes are really really big fans of slapstick comedy. The heads of IKEA watch Laurel and Hardy shorts to get ideas on how to better serve the customer. "Tell them to load stuff that is enormous onto a cart. Comedy gold and inexpensive service."
Hahahaha. Big fun. Yeah.
A slightly neat moment was picking up the sofa cover. It was like going to the automat or something. If the automat served home needs instead of culinary needs. You entered in this code and how many whatevers you needed and this door opened up and you opened up a little clear door and there was your whatever. Fancy! Okay the Swedes get to live because of that touch of cleverness. Even if they are psychotic otherwise.
We went through the self-serve checkout as we had 10 items or fewer.
There was something highly amusing about going through self-serve with a sofa. More comedy gold. Eventually we got that thing through and we sorted out delivery stuff.
By this point I had a raging headache. The kind where medium sized reptiles erupt from one's head. I kept cool. I got a piece of candy from the delivery service area. Eventually we got out of that bastard Scandinavian joint.
Fuck you Ingemar. Fuck you and your allen keys.
So tired.
We took a detour home to avoid the whole I-5 traffic snarl. (They are doing road work since it is August and everything)
The drive home was actually pleasant and the Killer onion slept after the derby. But oh my head. Oh my sweet head.
The sofa arrives tonight.
This fucking sofa better last at least five years because I may cut a Swede.