IKEA

The rooms for my girls are still in a state of disrepair. Old beds still sit on the landing since I don't really know what I want to do with them. Toys they no longer want are in bags and the pictures that were once on the walls are now leaning up against them since I don't want to put nail holes in my pretty "new" walls!

One thing I did get done was making a trip to IKEA to get a chair for The Oldest's room.

She's at the age where she hangs out in her room with her friends  a lot and her bed is getting a little small for everyone.  A big, fat, girly chair seemed like just the ticket.

Mom and I headed up there to scope things out on a weekend. Note to self- DO NOT GO TO IKEA ON A WEEKEND IF YOU CAN AVOID IT.  Evidently, weekends are the destination of choice for everyone in my state, along with their cousins, second cousins and third cousins, once removed.  And me and my mom.  Brilliant planning on our part...but I'm wandering....

We found a chair, but didn't think it would fit in the car we came in.  No biggie. I'd come back during the week when the store is blissfully empty.

When I head to IKEA the second time, I'm by myself.  No problem.  At least I tbought it would be no problem until I actually go in the store.

For those who are not IKEA initiated, the store is huge and you pretty much have to meander through the entire store in order to get to the boxed-up furniture section.  This part is right by the checkout lines.  When I walked in, I figured I'd just go back through the checkout lines since my chair was in the isle closest to those lines.  In and out in 15 minutes.

I was wrong.

The IKEA employee of the month told me that I couldn't walk back through an empty checkout line, that I had to go through the entrance and wander on the curving cement pathway through the entire store.
Pleeaassee......

I make it to the spot where the furniture carts are kept. Those things don't roll straight and to roll one by yourself when it is constantly trying to go left is actually more challenging than you might think.

So I'm rolling an off-centered furniture cart through the huge warehouse isles of IKEA, headed straight to my chair not realizing that I haven't thought far enough ahead to know that I'd need some help getting the chair on my cart.

**Pull out the video camera for America's Funniest Home Videos now.**

My chair easily weighs about 40 pounds. Not too much. My 4 year old weighs 53 pounds and I can hold him just fine.  The problem with my analogy is that the chair is 40 pounds of awkward weight. And now I'm trying to move this box with a chair in it onto my crooked-rolling cart that doesn't have brakes. So when I try to just flop the box on the cart, my cart just rolls backward and the box ends up on the floor.

By this point I'm sure the box is weighing 80 pounds and has grown exponentially.

I'm now trying to deadlift this box onto the stupid cart while simultaneously keeping one foot behind a wheel to prevent the cart from moving backward. This only results in the cart rotating on my pivot point of a foot.  Box is still on the floor.

The whole time this is going on there is a man at the other end of the isle who is clearly seeing me struggle and is not offering his help.  He's not a southerner. At least he's not one who was raised right. And by derned, I'm not going to ask THAT guy for help. He's probably laughing at me and I'm plenty strong enough for this box....

I finally push the cart up against the opposite side of the isle and slide the box across the isle. I prop one end on the cart and put my weight into it while sliding the now 120 lb box onto the cart.  This whole thing has taken about 20 minutes and now I'm sweating.  Oh so attractive.

When I wheel my crooked cart to the checkout, it seems that by laying my box flat on my cart I won't fit through the line. Fabulous.   So I step out of line and attempt to get the box on a small side so it will fit through the checkout.  Again, hope someone gets this on film because I'm sure it would win a prize.

By now the box is about 200 lbs.  It had to be.  And through all my struggles no one offered to help.  There were no southerners in the store that day.  That's what I'm telling myself.

Checkout went smoothly (finally) and then I had to find someone to help me put the 300 lb box in my car.  That part went easily enough...push a button and voila! Here is the guy in the vest whose job it is to help put stuff in cars.  Where was that button when I was on isle 27 working up a sweat and fumbling with this monster of a box? I guess the button is only for the outside.  Bummer.

So here's the chair.  It took about 15 minutes to put together. The Oldest loves it, I love it and as soon as we find a pillow or throw, it will not look so white and plain in her room.

It was a lot of work for that chair and now my daughter's room looks about 1000 times nicer than mine.  I need to work on that....and teaching my son that if he sees someone who needs help he should offer to help.  Because that is what true southern gentlemen do.

And if someone wins money for the video, I should get a cut.