Its hurting to type this today as I have what I affectionately refer to as ‘Ikea hands’. Ikea hands are the result of any activity to do with said Swedish chain as it will no doubt involve at least some of the following: awkwardly carrying over heavy things; moving heavy things out of a constantly moving trolley and onto the till whilst a gormless blue shirted gimp stares at you; putting bits of furniture together and having to hit it with your hands as a hammer would break it but pushing it is not enough; trying to screw screws into metal drawer handles that don’t have holes big enough for the screws you’re given; repeatedly bashing your own head and face out of sheer frustration at how you can consistently return to and buy things from a place that makes you nothing less than extremely angry. I visited said flatpack hell today for the first time ever by myself. Usually Ikea visits have been with family, girlfriends or friends and have 100% of the time resulted in an argument of some sort. This will range anywhere from big issues like what item of large furniture should be purchased to reasoning that yes, you can have enough tea lights. All in all it always has very little to do whatever the argument seems to be about and more that after half an hour in a domestic labyrinth worthy of having its own build-it-yourself minotaur, any and everyone goes a little bit bonkers. Anywhere that has a distinct lack of windows and yet an endless stream of rooms that you walk through like the most invasive episode of ‘Through The Keyhole’ you’ve ever seen is not going to leave you sane. The arrowed path that takes you round and round until you’ve seen six trillion chairs and yet all you really need is to sit down. And the furniture being called ‘bonky’ and ‘shitty’ or ‘wanka’ so you feel like you’ve been personally introduced to a bunch of wooden dwarves. Its not designed for the unsteady of mind. That’s all I’m saying.
Going alone, I’d thought I’d be safe. I thought that I’d escape the possibility of a shouting match about how much I want a veggie hotdog and not an art print of a flower that appears to have been drawn by a chimp who’s sat on a pencil and waved its arse at a canvas. No. Instead I had three arguments inside my own head about whether or not I should get a Goliat or a Brunsta or something and the never ending small child in my brain shouting repeatedly ‘this is boring! When are we going home?’ I still got round it in an hour and despite barely being able to lift a chest of drawers I’d bought and nearly screaming as I tried to tip it over the edge of the trolley and into the boot of my car but instead kept rolling said trolley into other people’s cars and banging my head on the boot, I felt like I’d survived. Then, just as I got in the car, I did something stupid and remembered my mum had insisted they have a bit where you can get spare parts and as my CD racks and wardrobe are missing some vital components I decided to investigate.
After racing round the entire building like a Scaletrix car controlled by someone on a lot of coffee, I discovered the ‘Returns’ section. This section, despite its name, does more than just returns. Instead it deals with spare parts, general complaints, and various other queries. What this means, is rather than me finding a small shelf with the few bits on it I needed and leaving, I had to wait for 45 minutes surrounded by angry people whose cupboards were missing bits or not working while I simply wanted 4 tiny metal things that outside of CD racks could possibly only be used to poke into squirrel’s eyes. Grey squirrels. Not red. I like red ones. 45 fucking minutes. Then the man came back with the tiny metal things and stupid me mentioned the cupboard hinges I needed too and so another 15 minutes of my life disappeared as I watched him behind the plastic screen talk to his mates for a while, drink some tea, grab two hinges off the wall right by him and walk out. They didn’t charge me for such things, but they didn’t need to. They had already taken my soul, my dignity and a large portion of my life. Fuck you Ikea. I hope you burn down. And you’d burn really easily too with all that cheap wood. Actually don’t burn down. I still have one more thing to build and I might need spare bits.
Tonight is my only night off this week and I’m fairly sure it will be spent shouting at inanimate objects and making sure I don’t drill my own face off.
