Because Ikea is a mini universe

I should get some kind of award because I spent six hours in Ikea with a toddler. I really did and I'm here to report to you that it is possible, if you want to go to Ikea bad enough that is. I did.

It all came about because in Lyon I am carless. No not careless, although you you could probably say I am that too I guess. No, I am without car. I suppose I could just drop Seb off at his job in the morning and take the car, but there is a bigger issue at hand. I am completely without balls. I hate, hate, hate city driving. I have huge fears of going down a series of one way streets and eventually emerging somewhere near an exit for Marseille stranded in a lone fishing port far, far from home. I am a bus and metro girl. Let the big boys do the driving, me I'll buy a ticket. So of course Ikea was all about getting there and not having to drive, even though technically it's outside the city but still I would have somehow ended up in the city center during rush hour I'm sure of it.

Seb came and fetched me at the apartment and he kept repeating, "are you sure you'll be okay?" He'd come at the tail end of his lunch break to deposit me at Ikea's doorsteps. "I may not be back to get you until 7:30 or later." I waved him off with a shrug. I was really eager to get inside and browse. "Yeah sure, no problem!"

I won't go into the whole sorted story about how I ranged from feeling tired, and angry, to elated and fascinated to finally bored and exhausted. I will just say that I did finally come to the conclusion that it wasn't such a bad place to spend an afternoon, even if your shopping companion insists on spending inordinate amounts of time crawling inside the lower bunk of a carefully made up child's display room and throwing all the little colorful pillows out into the aisles, and even if the little guy slobbered on a 6 euro giraffe that you couldn't pry from his clutches for five hours and you felt so guilty that you had to buy it for him, even if you had to gag down a soggy, salmon sandwich with decaying lettuce, even then you could say you'd had a good day because a) your husband wasn't there bugging you with a finger tapping his watch and b) you could finally people watch uninterrupted.

Cliché KRAPP seen in Ikea:

Land of the very pregnant. Am I missing something at the entrance?

How many gay men on cell phones calling their better halves to argue over lighting fixtures or sofa table legs can there be in one store on a given day? I saw at least five.

Two practically identical families shopping together. Two husbands, two wives, two six year olds and two new babies. We're like best friends and we do everything together. How fun is that!

The new mom breastfeeding in the corner of one of the kiddie bedrooms. Her husband kept shielding her and he was the "lookout" trying to pry everyone's eyes the other direction. I felt like walking over and saying "Umm, yeah I think the latch isn't quite right. You might want to tilt his head a little towards the ...could I just..okay theeeere you go!" If only they would have asked me. And hey we were there first so why should we have to leave Mr. Breast Patrol. Go hide behind a fern if you want privacy.

The people with very bad taste who go shopping with friends. There were quite a few of these. They usually use make overly animated exclamations, "c'est vraiment chouette ça!" And then the other friends will turn and say "moi j'adore ça" pointing to something equally frightning. They presumably go through the whole store like this. You just want to scream, "read some decorating magazines people!"

The Erasmus students! I loved you guys and kept seeing you all day. I even got to go to the checkout with you and saw what you bought. A purple toilet brush, a white rug for 97 cts, and some awful cookware that will likely last you the one year you're in France if you're lucky. And yes the "sac bleu" bought for "seulement" 60 cts at the checkout "ça il peut servir à beaucoup des chose, nest pas?"... said with a very pronounced German accent *snigger*

Finally we called Seb from the checkout line with a gentle nudge of: "where the hell are you and how soon can you come and rescue us?!" We bought what we had come for: a comforter for Little S, a pillow, a plant in a white ceramic pot, a garlic press, a meat mallet, an oversized roasting pan, some light bulbs, and oh yes, a very wet giraffe.