IKEA Land

Our Ikea idea started out as a fun venture. We thought, 'hey, we're poor college students, but we maybe we can afford an Ikea couch.' As we entered the complex, I pretended in my head that we were back in Denmark, it was delightful for about fifteen minutes. We sat Remy in miniature chairs, we ate some meatballs, we thought we needed lots of things we don't and then we realized we actually don't need them at all. We sat on a myriad of couches. Up and down we went, like we were real couch connoisseurs. Then we were snapped back into a reality that was not the happy country of Denmark. This place was packed to the brim with people and kids and meatballs and cheap furniture and this was our Saturday, our day to be together. My dad put it best when he said that Ikea couches (at least the ones we can afford) are like wooden planks with some fabric on top. Carl and I looked at each other just about the time when the girl in the cart next to us was having a meltdown and I nearly got stuck in an oddly shaped chair and knew we needed to get outside. We started following the checkout signs. We thought we took shortcuts, but there we were, in the lamp section, the frame section, the rug section, fabric, beds, more frames. We were lost deep in the abyss of Ikea. All I wanted was to see the plant section, letting me know that I was close to escaping, but it seemed the more we wanted freedom, the further in we got. When we finally reached the warehouse section, I've never seen Carl walk so briskly, and Carl is a brisk walker. It was a dramatic ending and we careened around shopping carts and people, at one point I saw a man struggling to get a box off a shelf, and since I was in heroic mode, I stopped and helped him, then was on my way, without even skipping a beat. We finally made it to the car and breathed a sigh of relief, then realized that the parking garage was our final maze and obstacle. Outside! We needed to be outside. We drove straight to Palo Alto's tiny zoo where we saw bunnies, ducks, two bobcats, a peacock and a raccoon, and a bat cave with no bats. Moral of the story, being outside is almost always better. Don't be surprised if you come to visit and instead of a new couch, we offer you a seat on a new beanbag chair, we won't be making it back to Ikea land for some time.