Laryngitis and cheap furniture

20Mar08

Finally, finally, we’re within touching distance of being settled in DestructoVille! Getting registered with a new doctor was a bit of an ordeal – and yes, I’m ill again, otherwise it wouldn’t seem so urgent, but apparently I have laryngitis and should refrain from talking as much as humanly possible – but, well, that story doesn’t seem worth recounting, really. And it’s come to something when several mile-long walks in the wrong direction up a hill only to be told that the doctor won’t see you anyway – but only AFTER you’ve registered, just to make things that little bit more inconvenient – doesn’t strike me as a story particularly worth telling. Anyway, I digress.

What remains of the house move is to buy some new furniture. DestructoBoy! and I already had to invest in a new bed (mmm, pocket-sprung goodness!) and a new sofa when we moved into the new flat, but it seems that the combining of all our earthly possessions will also require several new storage units. Thing is, DestructoBoy! and I don’t have a good history when it comes to buying storage units…

The last time we went to IKEA, we were in search of a DVD storage cabinet. I’m not sure whether it’s just us and our terminally bad luck, but storage units designed specifically for DVDs just don’t seem to exist – bookcases are too deep, but CD towers are too narrow. We can’t be the only people in the world with sizeable DVD collections, so what’s the deal here?

In desperation, we bought some CD towers from IKEA, but upon getting them home realised that they were almost comically small; woefully inadequate for housing our looming piles of DVDs. It shouldn’t have been a problem, since the boxes were unopened and we had the receipt, so we turned around and drove back to IKEA, arriving with a mere half hour left until the store closed. That should have been a red flag, really, but the returns area seemed reasonably quiet, so we took a numbered ticket and waited our turn.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally, our number was called, and we rolled our trolley up to the service desk, were greeted by a smiling customer service rep…

And an alarm sounded, asking for everyone to evacuate the store.

I’m not kidding – that is the exact instant that the alarm sounded. Right as our number was finally called, as we were just about to return our ridiculous tiny shelves, the whole building had to be evacuated. The IKEA employee advised us to just wait for a moment in case the alarm was switched off, but it wasn’t, and it soon became clear that people were going to panic in their haste to get to the exit, so we joined the throng, and left the store.

And then got in the car and drove home. Never let it be said that we don’t know when we’re beaten. Perhaps understandably, we’re nervous about setting out to buy new storage units now…

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