I survived!!! : pixeldiva

Ladies and Gentlebeasts.

I have an announcement to make.

I am no longer a virgin.

I have tasted the forbidden fruit, and I am addicted.

Today saw the occasion of my first visit to IKEA. It's Brent Park store, to be precise.

For years, I've read about and heard about the wonder that is IKEA, and yet had never experienced it for myself.

I'll say this for them - they worked out their strategy very very carefully. The truly annoying thing is that it works too.

Forcing you to wind your way through absolutely everything to get to the cash desks, particularly when the place is packed and the crowd is slow moving is absoloutely designed to tempt you with impulse buys. Standing behind a slow moving family for more than 30 seconds? Here, have some funky-shaped vases for £1. Now, doesn't that soothe your irritation away?

We went there with the intention of purchasing one particular coffee table, as seen in the IKEA catalogue (and eagerly anticipated for the three months we've been in the flat. Also, unsuccessfully obtained by D on Christmas Eve, due to his gross stupidity in not phoning to find out if they were open before going, but that's another story entirely), and a couple of side tables. When we got to the coffee table section (after walking through more sections than I can remember) "the" coffee table turned out to be really nasty looking.

Arse.

Quick rethink was in order. After studying the alternatives, we settled on a JUSSI coffee table in Beech (to match the one bookcase in the living room owned by our housemate). Added to this was a LACK side bench and a couple of CORRAS units. All in Beech. Sorted.

On through the twisty windy path (I swear these guys took lessons from Disney in crowd movement - we must have walked three miles inside that store winding back and forth) and a couple of BENNO DVD racks were added to the list.

A pair of lightbulbs here, a GRUNDTAL stainless steel shelf/rack thing with hooks for hanging utensils and herbs on for the kitchen there, and finally, we were at the Restaurant.

Now, I had been faintly worried about what I would be able to eat in the restaurant, until I had a think about it. Duh. Swedish Meatballs of course!

Now I know beggars can't be choosers, but while these things were definitely ball-y, the jury's still out about the meat-y part. Oh well. Nothing fatal, and just the one shocked moment where a parent thwacked their toddler over the head with what looked like a rolled up paper for taking the initiative and going up to an empty table. Not that I would ever dream of getting involved in parents disciplining their children, but when said paper barely misses me, then you can expect to get my attention.

We made it safely downstairs into the area of the shop called the Marketplace. "Oh my word" were the first words out of my mouth. The Harrods sale had nothing on this place. A few kitchen utensils later, and vague disappointment that they didn't have a couple of the bits I was looking for, and I was getting distinct "losing the will to live" vibes from D (who has, of course, been there, and done IKEA before, and so was not getting into the spirit of the outing).

We made our way towards the gargantuan self service furniture warehouse and attempted to find our stuff.

No Side Bench. Arse. Never mind, we can live without that.

Let's go and get the DVD things next.

Ok got DVD things.

No Coffee Table. Feck.

Ok, so now what do we do?

Short discussion ensued, followed by a short discussion with the customer service guy who cheerfully informed me that the items I wished were out of stock and would probably be back in stock on Monday, and no, I could not get them delivered then, I would have to come back to the store.

Another short discussion ensued about whether or not to go get the side tables if D was going to have to come back on Monday to get the other items anyway, and thus would have to pay two taxi fares to get the stuff back.

After much grumping and pouting from me it was decided that D would put back the DVD racks since they were to heavy for me to carry, and we would go and look for the side tables and see if we could at least go and get those.

So we trailed through the aisle of sale doom, where a sales assistant leaned forward without looking and managed to boot me in the shin (this trip to furniture nirvana was starting to look a bit sour by this time). Eventually, I made my way through the crowds to aisle 50, position 4.

A-ha! Success!

No. White. Need Beech. Beech. No fucking Beech.

It was at this point I lost the plot a little.

I believe the words that came out of my mouth were:

"Every fucking colour but fucking Beech. Does everyone in this fucking place want fucking Beech furniture?"

Followed by (after no real response but a shocked look from D):

"I think we might want to change our colour scheme honey, cos obviously Beech is as common as fucking muck at the moment".

Now, I'm not proud of that last statement (although the look on D's face was priceless, and I'd have burst into fits of laughter if I hadn't been so annoyed). There is nothing wrong with Beech furniture. Nothing at all. I was just irritated that I'd gone for Beech to fit in with the one item of furniture that our flatmate had purchased, even though it didn't match any of our stuff (particularly our bookcase in the room, which is a light pine veneer), in an attempt to make the place a bit more coherent looking.

So, it dawned on me that the helpful customer service guy had said that it was specifically the Beech coffee table that was out of stock.

Newly energised, I headed for the queue of people waiting to see another helpful customer services type blokey, with the aim of getting him to find out if the items we wanted were available in pine, so they would match our stuff, rather than hers, thus meaning we would continue to have matching furniture if we were to ever leave, and sod her bookcase, it can just not match.

"What colour would you like that in madam, Beech or Birch?" (madam? oh heck, I'm getting old)

"Birch, that's the light one, right?"

"Yes"

"Yeah, that please"

Result. All items we wanted were in stock in Birch. I also checked on a last minute change of mind on the side tables, and they were in stock too, in Birch.

Fab.

Now to get back through the hall of sales doom.

Quick. Get another trolley thing. Get to the shelves before some bastard has the same idea and grabs all of the Birch stuff.

We made it to the check-out and through it without incident, not putting too severe a dent in the finances, and headed to get a minicab.

A really funny guy brought us home, and we discussed the IKEA selling tactics and their effectiveness, and he told us a couple of funny stories about people swearing they'll never go back, and two weeks later sneaking in with their heads bowed in shame. He even helped us bring the stuff into the flat.

One final thought - I know they used to refer to flat-pack furniture from MFI as "Made For Idiots" but IKEA have really taken that concept and run with it. I swear, if you cannot figure out how to put a LACK table together, then you shouldn't be allowed out in public unsupervised.

IKEA.

Cliché, but that way for a reason.

I survived!!!

Left comments

Leave a comment

pixeldiva is...

reading

archived

elsewhere