put me in coach, I'm ready to play
New Haven, Connecticut is an old, historic town and like every other old, historic town, the roads are a mess. I drive an hour to get to experience New Haven and once you park and get out of the car it is always worthy the ghetto goodness.
Ikea is located inconveniently off Interstate 95. It is inconvenient because it is right after the merging points of Interstate 91 and 95. I come down on Interstate 91 from Hartford; in New Haven, this Interstate squeezes from four lanes into one (bound for New York City) and this one lane spits you into the far left hand side of Interstate 95. My exit was then five hundred yards on the right. I had to cross four lanes of traffic, like a lunatic, to get to my exit.
Many people thought I was Richard, but that I used the shortened form, because they were screaming that at me.
There could not have been less parking. Ikea is a Swedish store and I think I parked in Sweden. I had not thought ahead about what I was doing so I wore sandals and plodded along the parking lot and into a furniture store like none other. The best part of this was this mother and her two daughters were arguing over who was the owner of a hooded sweatshirt that one of the girls was wearing. Soon it turned into a physical altercation involving both daughters and the mother. Let me tell you, if I had hit my mother as a teen, it would have been the last thing I did. Bitch, please! You need to respect your parents.
Ikea is marketing genius because they put you into this maze and you have to walk through the whole store to get to the end. I have been to other Ikea stores so I knew to use the bathroom before I embarked on my epic journey into the bowels of Scandinavian Furniture Couture.
Normally Ikea is not filled with children; but I had never been to a newly opened Ikea. This one was filled with the riff raff that normally populates a newly opened store. They do not like the store, are not going to buy anything, and are appalled by the very concept of whatever the store is presenting you.
These people also bring their small children. I do not hate kids; I hate their parents. I hate you for dragging them places cranky and letting them wail the entire time, they are in the store. We all want to hear that. We all want to endure that. I have nannied, and I know parenting is not easy but it is also not impossible. I did have it out, briefly, with a woman who announced to her husband, �I am just going to ignore his screaming.� The rest of us should but should not have to. The rest of America should not have to deal with your kid. You had sex knowing what could happen to you but that does not mean it has to happen to me.
Then you have the people who bump into you in the store. I know I move quickly and sometimes run old people down but the only time people run into me is when I am standing still, looking at something. It�s almost always some one walking backwards into me and then they shove me and say, �watch where you are going, asshole.� To which I respond, �I was standing still, you were the one moving.� Honestly, I do not know where these people come from but it is not where I am from.
I trudged through the store and all the annoying parents of abused children to the warehouse area where you actually get your furniture. After an hour and a half of Ikea, I am at the end of my rainbow and they are out of the coffee table I wanted. All of this trauma for nothing, except the spiffy beer glasses that were on sale and now featured on my Buzz Net, here .
If you want to see my coffee table, that can be seen here . How it works is that you put square baskets in each of those cubbies (twelve baskets) and it looks really sharp. I need a coffee table that functions as storage as well as a surface.
