The exercise:
Write a little something that has to do with: Ikea.
Yeah, you read that right.
Mine:
One of the errands I took care of this weekend in Vancouver was picking up a bookcase from Ikea. We've badly needed one ever since we moved into our place, but had been unable to find one for a reasonable price that fit the space better than one we'd seen on the Ikea website.
At one point we were just going to have it delivered, but then I found out they wanted to charge us nearly $150 for the privilege. I know it's a big, heavy package, but come on!
Since we were making a trip to Vancouver in a few weeks anyway, we decided to save the money and just pick it up. I spent... far too large a portion of today putting it together.
I'm not sure it really needs to be said, but I'll say it anyway: Ikea manuals are created by people that hate everyone who is not them.
At various points during the construction, I observed that people in Sweden must have 'tiny baby hands', or that they simply 'make their babies do this'. I could think of no other explanation for how they might expect me to make my hands contort into the spaces the manual suggested.
Anyway. It's up now and it looks good. Tomorrow we shall fill it with books and things and then finally we might feel like we've finished moving in.
I've put together a number of bookcases in my time, including ones from Ikea (which have good shelf depth, which I think is important!) and after a while you get the hang of it. And yes, it does help if you have a sweat-shop of child-workers to use for the tricky bits. (Ahem, not that I do, of course. Not at all. That would be... less right.)
ReplyDeleteiKea
"It's an iKea," said the Green Lightbulb sounding put upon. Sylvestra ignored his tone of voice, as he seemed to be permanently aggrieved about something these days, and studied the bird critically.
"It's a parrot," she said, finally. "Dull, brown and grey, small beak, and you've stuck the Apple logo on the side of it. It's peeling off."
"It's an iKea," said Green again. "It's a search-and-rescue parrot. I was going to use it as the pilot for my instant parroting scheme-" Sylvestra shuddered at the memory "-but then I thought it might be able to find Dr. Septopus for us."
"I'm pretty sure Dr. Septopus is dead," said Sylvestra. "That ransom note we got was bizarre. To tell the truth, I thought you'd written it for a long while."
"Well that will make it easier," said Green. "The iKea is insectivorous, so it'll be drawn to the clouds of insects feeding on Dr. Septopus's bloated, raddled corpse."
"...are you sure you didn't write that ransom note?"
"Look, the iKea can memorise up to fifty of your favourite songs and sing them back to you." Green ignored the slur, and poked the parrot, which squawked angrily and tried to bite him.
"Teething troubles," he said. "Let's set it off after Dr. Septopus's corpse!"
Ikea -- never bought any, probably never will. Closest store is a 4 hour drive away & we don't have anything large enough to haul it home in. But I do envy my friend who goes down every once in a while and brings something elegant home.
ReplyDeleteThis prompt spawned a blog entry for me. I <3 IKEA!
ReplyDeletehttp://knowledgeyesterdayarrived.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/things-and-stuff-2/
Greg - yeah, this one has great shelf depth. Very handy.
ReplyDeleteClever twist on the prompt :)
Everything after 'I'm pretty sure Dr. Septopus is dead' had me laughing.
Morganna - the stores are dangerous. Unless you take the shortcuts, you have to walk by everything... and something is sure to catch your eye, whether you need it or not.
Tania - that's great, I'll be over to check it out momentarily :)