Same shit, different Ikea...

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a trip to Ikea, no matter where in the world, will always yield the same five things:

1) Tealights.
2) Wine glasses with an unfathomable name like 'Klumpenkont'.
3) Frustration and self loathing.
4) At least 10 things you don't want, but are convinced will make your life better. These items are usually storage related.
5) A bill roughly 50% higher than you estimated when walking around and 200% higher than you originally planned to spend



Visiting New York Ikea is no different to anywhere else, the homogenisation police have seen to that. If anything, it is more of pain in the arse for me personally because I don't have a car. There are no Ikeas in Manhattan. Manhattanites speak of craziness like getting water taxis to the Brooklyn Ikea. I do not think flatpack furniture and boats are a happy marriage and anyone that thinks so has clearly been living on an island for too long.

So I plan to subway and bus it to Brooklyn Ikea with The Teenager in tow. She has been bribed with the promise of a bedside table, but my main purpose is to buy black out roller blinds for the apartment. The blinds will cost the same price for five as they will for just one at Bed, Bath and Beyond up the road from the apartment. I am conveniently ignoring the fact that what I am planning will involve hours of travel and the eventual purchase of far more than just the blinds, therefore rending the saving nil and effectively taking me into a negative balance.

If this is my first mistake, then my second is listening to a man on a shopping related issue.

''Huneee. Go to the New Jersey Ikea, it is waaay nearer than the Brooklyn one" The American advises.
''Hmm, not sure, that's not what google maps is saying."
''I am telling you Huneee. And it's super easy. Go to the bus terminal by Times Square and there's a free bus!''

Super easy. It sounds too easy. American easy rather than British easy

45 minutes later The Teenager and I are at the Port Authority bus terminal. We have spent ten minutes trying to locate where the free bus goes from and another ten realising we need to get a ticket for the free bus, even though it is free, so a ticket seems superfluous. We have been dissed by the rudest woman ever employed by New Jersey transit and gravely misunderstood by an African cleaner. We are standing at the window of a tour company that is the last booth left to try:

''Do you run the free bus to Ikea in Elizabeth?"
''Yes we do!''
"Brilliant! When is the next one?''
"Last one went at 3."

It is 3.o7 p.m. On the man's instruction we go back over to the New Jersey transit windows. I refuse to stand in line for the rudest woman ever employed, so end up in a longer line that takes 10 minutes to get to the front of.

''Hey, do you run a paid bus to Ikea?''
''Where?''
"Ikea."
"In Elizabeth?"
"Yes!'
"Yes."
"Great!"
"Last bus went 2 minutes ago...NEXT!"

It is 3.17 p.m.

The Teenager has decided a bedside table is not worth this much hassle and looks ready to attack me when I tell her we are not giving up and are going to the Brooklyn one instead.

I call The American. The American claims it will be simple.

15 minutes later we are on a Brooklyn bound C. The train stops at Jay Street and then we are to change trains to the F. Except that when we get to F the F-ing F is not working. The platform has been cordoned off with dramatic looking tape as if multiple murders have taken place there. But the only murder taking place is the one the teenager is committing on me in her head for dragging her into all this. Weekend engineering works are the culprit. There are signs taped everywhere directing passengers to a bus. A bus? I have never even been on a bus in New York, how do they go faster than 2MPH with all the traffic?



By now The Teenager can only bear to speak to me to ask to borrow my phone to call The Boy.
''We have missed our SKYPE date cos of this crap Mother."
''Sorry."
''Just give me yer phone yeah?''

We left the house 3 hours ago and are going nowhere fast. Halfway through the bus journey I casually mention the other bus we have to change to.

''Other bus? What the fuck Mother?''
"Language!"
"What other bloody bus?"
''The Ikea bus!''
"We're on the Ikea bus!'
"No, we're on the bus that takes us to the Ikea bus."
"For god's sake! I want a frigging car yeah? I want a car for my 16th."
"Don't be so ridiculous. We live in Manhattan, no one drives. "
"I want a car."
"You're not getting a car."
"The American says if we all move to LA we could all get cars. Convertibles."
"The American talks a lot of shit sometimes."

*

We are on the other bus and after ten minutes of bumping down unfinished roads to the sound of the gangsta' rap being played by the driver- the familiar blue and yellow Ikea branding is blinking in the distance of the Red Hook sky. We get off the bus to a gang fight over the road and The Teenager is worried that someone will get shot, so makes me run with her to avoid any potential gunfire.

When inside my brain is compromised and I start to believe that hanging art Ikea prints on your wall is acceptable behaviour and that cardboard storage boxes are the road map to peace in the Middle East. Everything happens pretty fast and in the midst of it all The Amercian calls and agrees to order me a car service back to Manhattan to make up for his earlier balls up suggesting New Jersey Ikea and subsequent fuck up of not checking weekend engineering works.



Before I know it I am heading for the checkout with a trolley full of things I won't be able to even remember I bought by this time next week. All around me are similar victims. Shell shocked New Yorkers, their trollies piled high with bright plastic chairs and Lack side tables. No one knows what just happened to them.

I have forgotten something and I can't remember what it is. Somewhere in this distance my child is whinging about getting to the hot dog and ice cream cafe before the car arrives. In America it is a hot dog, frozen yogurt and doughnut cafe. An Ikea manager somewhere is loosing his bonus for allowing this flouting of Ikea homogenisation rules.

The fucking blinds!

I go tearing back through Ikea the wrong way, which as we all know, is nigh on impossible, so I run faster so as not to get caught by the anti clockwise patrol. I arrive at a tiny selection of Venetian Blinds. Where are the Roller blinds? I scan frantically only to see voiles.
Voiles, voiles, everywhere. Panels of fabric swaying tauntingly from the ceiling. Where are the roller blinds?!

By sheer fluke, one of Ikea's three only employees walks by and I grab them, a look of panic in my eyes.

''Where are the roller blinds?"
''Huh?"
''The Roller Blinds"
''What blinds?''

Fucking hell, shall I just google the Swedish for blinds? Is my speaking the Queen's English in the manner it was meant confusing you? I make a mental note to hire full time translator so Americans can understand me.

''Black out?''
''Oh the blinds?"
"Yes!"
''Like roller, black out blinds!''

Big pause.

''Nah, we don't do them anymore..."
"What?"
"Yeah, there is some kind of problem with them and they, like, took them off the shelves. Sorry!"

And she walks away, like the last wasted 5 hours of my life are of no significance to her. I look at my watch, which has started to run backwards in the oxygen deprived rabbit hole of Ikea. 5 hours. 5 hours of my life that I will never get back.

Just the same shit. Different continent.