TheBanyanTree: Those Bleedin' Swedes!

[Julie Anna Teague]

I had never been to an IKEA store, the nearest one being in Chicago, 5 
hours away, but when I started going with the partner (now husband) to 
visit his family in Pittsburgh they informed me that they were blessed 
with an IKEA and that I must go and experience it.  So I dragged the 
husband there, kicking and screaming.  The first time we went I think 
we made it out in something like five hours, and I don't think I bought 
anything at all.  I was just completely overwhelmed.

For one thing, I am intimidated by all of the exact measurements on 
everything.  Some cabinet or other is, according to it's label, exactly 
37.4" tall by 82.3" wide by 13.5" deep.  I'm more used to the 
"eyeballing it" method, but husband, a builder, would say things like, 
"Thirty-seven point four inches.  Would that fit where you want to put 
it?  You don't know exactly?  Well, you can't buy something if you 
aren't absolutely sure those measurements are correct."  I just found 
myself crying through my hands things like, "I don't KNOW if the space 
beside the toilet is 6.5 inches or 8.2 inches wide!  I don't KNOOOOOOW!"

For another thing, the maze concept is absolutely disturbing to me. 
There is no back-of-the-store or front-of-the-store. You don't come out 
where you go in. At the one in Pittsburgh you have to go all the way up 
first and then work your way back down.  I did get really lost once.  I 
was to meet husband in lighting but I kept circling through fabric, 
then candles, then flower pots in some frightening endless loop.  The 
nearest experience I've had to that is when I was spelunking in some 
local caves and trying to find my way out of a circle formation of 
underground rooms.  I finally had to have an employee direct me out of 
the smaller maze I was trapped in and out into the bigger maze that 
would lead me to lighting.

Husband blamed me for being in there for five hours, but he is the one 
who gets mesmerized by each and every tiny room and will stand staring 
at a certain kitchen cabinet setup for thirty minutes, trying each and 
every odd little self-closing cutlery drawer and lighted wine glass 
rack like it's space age technology.  Whereas I can shoot right to 
candles and napkins, load up my humongo blue bag, and shoot out again, 
happy as a clam.  The one redeeming feature of IKEA, though, is the 
Swedish nomenclature.  Son and husband and I got particularly hung up 
one year on something named "Aspudin" which we pronounced "ass puddin'" 
for the rest of the way through the store as in, "Did you pick up an 
ass puddin'?"  In fact, we laughed about it for nearly a week 
afterwards.  "What's for dinner, ass puddin'?"  Maybe we are easily 
amused.

And--blasphemy--I don't even like meatballs.  I do, however, like to 
stock up on their ginger thins.  All in all, it is a frightening place 
so it's good we only go there once every couple of years and treat it 
like an expedition.

Julie