IKEA: Labrynth of Furniture and Squirelly Carts

For the past few months I've been planning a wall montage for our apartment of different pictures of trees. Back in January I headed to IKEA and took a look at their frames, trying to decide how to best approach the project, but wasn't ready to buy them at that point. I finally made it back today.

Knowing what I wanted, I grabbed the World's Squirelliest Cart, which appeared to have some sort of device on the wheels making it squirellier, probably with the intention of making it "turn more easily," and headed to the frames. Luckily, I knew how to get through the maze of rugs, cups and plates, around the lighting fixtures and energy saving light bulb display into the promise land of frames.

When I got there, I parked my cart in a place that would be relatively out of the way and set out to collect the frames in the sizes I needed. Easier said than done.

I looked and looked and looked, but was unable to find any acceptable frames that came in the variety of sizes I needed. I walked back to find my cart missing. After asking a store clerk, who looked up their inventory, I found out the frames I needed would be out of stock for an indefinite period of time.

So I tried to come up with some way I could get this project done with different frames. Just when I was ready to give up, I found the two frames I needed sitting in the wrong section. It seems the Swedish Build-it-Yourself Gods had smiled upon me.

So I collected all of the frames I needed and shoved them in a big yellow bag while cursing the jerks who stole my cart (not that I knew who they were).

After picking up the bag, which was filled with 14 frames, I realized I was going to need a cart before I made the journey through the storage room to the check-out. So, I picked up the heaping pile-o-frames and made a journey back through the light fixtures, past the plates and rugs into the promise land of carts.

Swimming upstream through the sea of people and shiny, empty carts was difficult. I kept wishing someone would abandon their cart to me –– this poor girl carrying a bag the size of her own body –– but it didn't happen.

When I made it to the carts, I actually almost said to this other woman who was getting a cart, "I feel like we're in the cart promise land," but she looked grumpy, so I stayed silent. I think that's what IKEA does to people; it makes them grumpy.

While I've been relatively satisfied by everything I've purchased there, I can't say I've ever left without feeling that I had been somehow screwed-over by the giant store (not by the company, but by the actual building). The design of the place –– this big crazy maze of furniture displays and tidbits that cannot be quickly navigated through –– requires shoppers to become urban Indiana Joneses in their quest to keep up with the Joneses.