Lost in IKEA

It's been a long time, years even, since we have visited an IKEA store.

There's something  inviting about the clean lines of the Sweeds, and touring the mini cube houses displayed there, and it's always nice to freshen up on my Sweedish now and then.

Our own home would have to be described as anything but modern or streamlined. I had an interior designer claim it was decorated in the Contemporary style. Perhaps this was a nice way of avoiding  saying it resembled "mid-century clutter" or "Hod-Podge Décor". All the same, visiting the Swiss store gives hope for some sort of mess management and clean living.
 

I have friends who make the IKEA trek yearly, spending an afternoon there, having lunch, enjoying Swedish meatballs and fish. Sorry. Passing on that experience, hating both, and throw in the tasteless cookies along with it. I'll just fill up on cheese and the cardboard like crackers.

As we drove into the parking lot of the Costa Mesa IKEA, we wondered if there was some sort of event occurring as there was no parking in the Disneyland sized parking lot. This just made us all the more determined to fight our way into the store to see what bargains we might be missing out on, and secured a parking spot only a block away from the entrance. We exited the car and followed the legions of people into the store. I picked up a stray cart on the way in to use as handbag carrier and walker. That was mistake 1.

There didn't seem to be a clear entrance into the store, and the elevator up didn't seem large enough for my enormous cart, so we made our way to the other end only to discover this was parcel pick up and no show room access. Back to the other end of the store and decide to cut through the check out ...Mistake 2.

We wander around these aisles for awhile, wondering where all the housewares and junk are?  Continuing our progress toward the expansive ground floor, we find our way going against the people flow until we finally find our way into the show rooms with the "good stuff". Mistake 3.

The place is packed. Obviously, this IS the event for families to visit IKEA on a Saturday afternoon. There are hundreds of people here, all pushing along various types of carts and bags. We are trying to find where the entrance to this place is. Obviously we have come the back way, continuing our meandering through the crowd and following the many exit arrows that indicate store flow, but doing it backwards.  Mistake 4.

We kept seeing stuff that we liked but passed on because we were determined to find the beginning and follow the arrows like we were supposed to. Mr. Man picks up a plastic squirt bottle and tosses it into the giant cart I'm clinging to and we continue our backward search. Tough shopping against the flow of the people. Yes, we received many disdainful looks, but our determination to find the beginning buoyed after hearing a couple other shoppers ask sales people where the exit was or how to get out?  (Pride kept us from asking where the entrance was) Mistake 5.

Mr. Man suggests we start marking knotches in furniture so we'll know if we came this way before. After more than 30 minutes of this upstream fight, we find an area full of shopping carts like I have. A helpful lady asks if we would like one. "NO!" I abandon my cart, and the spray bottle and we progress up to a second floor where we find the beginning of this massive place.

Thankfully the restaurant, rest rooms and more baskets reside here. We have arrived. Reset the mind to start again after taking a break . NOW we are doing it right. As we make the show room rounds, admiring how streamlined and clean every thing looks, we decide this is never going to be us. The aisles are like the 91 freeway, and clog to full stop. Screaming children demanding stuffed monkeys and plastic colorful cups. I'm ready to call it a day.  Exiting,  following the arrows.

 

Passing up all the glass ware, bedding, pillows that appear flat before they're ever used and furniture that requires assembly.  We pass a knotched  wall divider. Mr. Man claims we've been here before, yet it doesn't look familiar from this direction. Pushing our way downstream, we finally get the store flow. Oh, and there's a map of how to find stuff......at the beginning! THAT would have been a useful little pamphlet. 

Seeing the exit light ahead, we get to the cashiers. About 50 of them processing hundreds of people pushing giant cart loads of everything. IKEA doesn't have bags. You have to purchase them. No problem . We don't need a bag. That spray bottle fits just fine in my left hand!

Total time in IKEA- 1 hour , 20 minutes.
Time spent lost- 30 minutes.
Total amount purchase- $.99
Time of planned return- 3 years, or until I learn to like fish paste. . . (smorgaskaviar) 

Note to self. ......... re-read this BLOG!