Hey - We're Going to IKEA !!!

With Ikea's latest store now open in Bletchley, no longer do we have to go all the way to either London or Birmingham to wait ages to park, follow arrows on the floor around a large warehouse, purchase £70 worth of tat then have a hot-dog. Now we can just pop up the road.

Having just got back from flat-packed Swedish hell, I can safely say that Ikea have taken the experience to a totally new level. You actually start queuing nearly 2 miles away from the store in stop-start traffic before you can get in the car park.

With Radio 2, Pippa and a braeburn apple to while away the time, the 35 minute wait to enter the car park was not as arduous as it might have been. If the queue to reach the car park is this bad, I thought, then just think what parking and shopping are going to be like, it was going to be bedlam. I’m a firm believer in the fact that if you decide to go to the likes of an Ikea, or certain shops on certain occasions (like Christmas eve) then you know in advance what it’s going to be like. The lack of parking, the irate stream of cars waiting for a solitary space, the Wembley sized crowds, screaming children, fear of pickpockets and do-gooding charity tin-shakers, it’s enough to drive you insane, unless you prepare. Mental preparation for events such as Ikea is essential. Never go to Ikea just after a row, otherwise your other-half may nip off in the bedding department and you wont see her again until candles and mirrors and you’ll get the blame for walking off. Neither should you go on a full stomach, for two good reasons, toilets are rare and thus hard to find and believe me you don’t want to have to pee in a Rävïllï watering can in the garden department if you get caught short and secondly, you just have to leave room for a 50p hotdog. The secret is to get into an Ikea mindset, which is a trance-like state where you just blank out everybody else and push your trolley in a smooth flowing motion whilst following the arrows.

Whilst passing beanbags on my way to bed throws, I could hear other customers around me complaining about a young couple walking towards us, against the flow of the arrows, anyone would have thought that they were naked and smoking a joint. The snidey looks and mumbled comments as they passed the ‘arrow followers’ was amazing. I however, just kept on pushing and kept on not caring about anyone else.

Arriving at blinds, just before wicker baskets, Pippa pointed out the new Ikea ‘vertical window panel blinds system’ which she had seen earlier in the brochure. As far as I could see, the only new thing about this ‘system’ was two fold, (1) the blinds were twice as wide as the ones they sold last year, and (2) Ikea couldn’t be arsed to put all the pieces together in a kit to make it easy for you. To purchase this ‘system’ you would have to perform a Krypton Factor style, mental agility test to see if you could construct this ‘modular blind system’ in your mind then find the right bits on the shelves and put them in your trolley before either the line was discontinued or you start to suffer dehydration, whichever came first. I thought I had it all straight in my mind, 3-way track, suspended wall brackets, pull-rod, extra clips – now did I need a special mitre saw block for cutting the track, no, I’d do what I normally did and suspend between the freezer and my toolbox, hold it with one hand and try to cut it with the other, then swear every 10 seconds when the blade slipped.

The one thing we were missing was the 2 beige blinds that would make up the colour contrast nicely, the beige shelf was empty. An orphaned trolley was parked next to the one point four metre single track rails and no one had been near it for nearly five minutes. On my second time of passing it, my suspicions were confirmed, four packs of beige blinds were in the trolley, just the job, but at that precise moment a short Malaysian couple appeared from another isle grasping a toilet brush and twelve sherry glasses. They added these to their booty in the, until now, abandoned trolley. I could tell that this couple had a blatant disregard for trolley ownership and that it wasn’t a momentary lapse of madness that made them wander yards away from it, lured by the sparkle of the parrot-encrusted bathroom mirror, they were serial trolley-abusers and they would leave it again, but this time they would pay, the hefty price of beige blinds.

After studying their trolley from a distance, I worked out which angle to extract the French loaf sized blinds from the topless cage, my years of playing Jenga in the pub were about to pay off. I prepared to make another circuit and approach the trolley from the handle side, hence using my body to block my actions from most of the store. I was set, I had a plan, an escape route, an alibi (I thought the trolley was new stock) and transport.

“Both of us blind as bats !” Pippa informed me as she stands up in front of my trolley, “Look, they were here right underneath all the time” she grins thrusting two beige blinds into my trolley with glee. Now that we had all the component parts, I would have no excuse for not completing the installation as soon as we got home. In fact, I would probably have to come up with a pretty good reason for not doing at least the prep work and measuring in the car whilst driving back to Luton.

Pippa’s slightly raised voice of excitement had alerted the Malaysians in my direction, I had began to worry that they were on to me, and like a couple of ASBO-ridden parents only starting to show concern about their kids four minutes before they are taken into care, the Polynesians had their little Hawaii-five-O hands gripped around their trolley handle and were reversing at a fair rate of knots. Pippa’s well trained shopping sense and eagle eyes had saved me from breaking the eleventh commandment ‘Thou shall not dip into another mans basket’ Nigel 7:11.

The highlight of the journey home was to purchase twenty-three of Sainsbury’s finest ‘Be Good To Yourself’ ready meals, yeah there were no real highlights. This stock of prepared food were the backbone of my healthy eating regime, which I need to follow rigorously if I was to have any chance of loosing my target 2lb a week between now and the wedding.

The blinds didn’t get installed, instead we had a bottle of wine and watched the telly, like normal people.