I was happily listening to Iain Lee on LBC when Mr T asks if I'd like to go for a spin to IKEA. My immediate response was 'F'off. I'd rather stick my testicles in a juice machine'. After a bit of grovelling I relented, as usual, and pulled on some combats and a beanie hat and headed off to the Croydon Twin Towers. We left Iain chatting to some demented OAP from Watford.
Mr T had to get a refund for some bits of laminated chip board that were attempting to pass themselves off as kitchen cupboard doors. He'd bought them earlier for the kitchen area at his work and somehow managed to pick up the wrong doors and fittings. It's easy done in that breeze block warehouse when faced with a sea of cardboard boxes and bar codes.
Even as we approached the main entrance I could feel my chest tightening. By the time I stepped onto the escalators I was hyper-ventilating and my ankles swelled up like a pregnant rhino. The dizziness hit as we glided past a display of red, yellow and green plastic that was posing as a home office.
I sat down at the edge of the restaurant and composed myself whilst two fat women in leggins and flip flops, spoon-fed Swedish meatballs to their equally rotund children. Breathing and heart rate stabilised we ventured off into the rainbow maze.
We tried to be clever and found what we thought was a shortcut through to Kitchens but landed up back at the restaurant, twice. In the end we gave up and just got in line and followed everyone else along the designated path as they scooped up colourful crap into their yellow plastic bags.
At last we got to Kitchens and a lovely IKEA chap with a small afro did something on the computer screen and handed Mr T a little ticket with the number 424 on it. We were ushered off to the Returns department. Afro man told us to 'give it half an hour'. That should have started alarms bells ringing but by now we were suckered into the whole IKEA 'experience' and wandered off to Market Place to while away 30 minutes amongst the candles, ice cube trays and plastic fish slices.
I finally succumbed and picked up 2 packets of voile window drapes (that's net curtains for my straight readers). Mr T nearly became a serious casualty as he was diverted by a teak stained, pine steamer in garden furniture. I managed to prise him away eventually after reminding him that we'd been foraging for 25 minutes and had an appointment in Returns. I now have a thumping headache.
The tills were empty so I parted with my £6.98 very quickly. Left turn into Returns to be greeted by a sea of trolleys and a big digital display flashing the number 401!
40 minutes later and I'm started to get agitated again. My growing anxiety is made worse when a small child decides to whizz round the place on those stupid roller trainers. It was making really annoying sound effects every time it sped by and after about 10 minutes I was planning on hurling an empty tolley at him on his next circuit. I could feel my palms sweating as I gripped the handle and rocked gently on the bench. That kid would have been roadkill if Mr T hadn't interrupted my concentration with an ice cream.
This was only a temporary respite as said kid then decides to stop in front of us and stare while we struggle in vain to prevent the ice cream from dripping all over the floor. Foolishly Mr T decides the best approach is to enter into a dialogue with the brat. The evil child just shrieks, laughs and speeds off after dropping a very smelly fart.
Finally, after an hour, Mr T is called to till number 5. I decided to stay put and fiddle with my voiles while he's being interrogated.
20 minutes later and I'm chewing the skin round my nails. He's now got 3 IKEA staff round his till and they're all fiddling with bits of paper and scowling at the PC screen. It took another half an hour for the 3 of them to work out what the correct order should have been and how much of a refund Mr T was due.
I guess when you employ muppets whose primary skills are being able to swipe bar codes, you can't really expect them to be good at adding and subtracting too.
As I head for the exit I'm hit on my blind side by a overloaded trolley and it slices a chunk of flesh off my heel. It's the two fat meatball women and they glare at me as though I deliberately put my ankle in the way of their trolley. They look a bit fierce so I decide against a confrontation and limp off bleeding to the car.
I have now taken a blood oath that I will never venture into that soul-sucking warehouse ever again. Al Quieda chose the wrong Twin Towers
*footnote*
The voile window drapes stayed up for approx 80 minutes and have spent the rest of the weekend on the bedroom floor.
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