I.K.E.A. — Ich Kriege Einen Anfall

Sorry for the German title, but it is a perfect fit. And this very sentence might even be regarded as a pun.

Here the German sentence “Ich kriege einen Anfall” is equivalent to “I’m getting a fit of rage”. At least some time ago IKEA was, from my experience, prone to missing parts. There are not many things more annoying than having almost completed a new shelf and finding out that one single bolt is missing, which of course is necessary to hold all of it together. Driving to the next IKEA is out of the question, because it’s Saturday evening. It would be a 2 hours drive anyway.

Today, a Sunday, my “local” IKEA was open for business and as I’ve just moved to a new temporary home, I was still needing a few things to make the place worth living in. This included three cacti and a pretty nifty solar lamp called SUNNAN. This time my problem is not at all related to missing parts. After having read this post, people may argue that it was caused by missing brains though – please refrain from telling me that I’m right.

Anyway. Usually IKEA markets are clearly visible from highways, impossible to miss. I knew exactly where I had to go, meaning I had the street address. But it seems my mind was wandering a bit. Suddenly I saw the yellow IKEA sign a few km away, so I took the exit right before and even managed to get there. Street signs said “Möbelzentrum” (“furniture center”), which seemed pretty close. When I got there it looked a lot bigger than your standard IKEA buildings, lots of loading docks, didn’t seem quite right. Bummer!

Anyway, after adding some more miles to my car and running quite low on gas, I finally arrived at my intended target and bought some “stuff”. IKEA shopping spree you might say. Thankfully I didn’t take a cart and the yellow IKEA bags are not bigger inside than what they appear to be on the outside.

End of story: don’t let your mind wander while driving, or buy a navigation system ASAP.

Pictures of the SUNNAN solar lamp: