I’m finding that my Uncle Nunzio gets depressed easily these days. Well, maybe "disappointed" is a better description for it.
For instance, he became disappointed for days after his nephew Claudio and his wife took him to see the musical Mamma Mia! Apparently the title of the musical led Uncle to believe that he would be treated to some Neapolitan love songs, but instead he got the songs of ABBA, a Swedish pop group that made him break out in hives.
It was not to be Uncle’s only Swedish disappointment.
Last week I visited him in his new apartment across from a church. Uncle will only live across the street from a church; it doesn’t matter which denomination. (His first apartment after he sold his home, when Aunt Millie went to that big vacuum cleaner in the sky, was across from a synagogue.) Conversely, Uncle will never live across the street from a playground, which he believes is a haven for drinking and sex after dark (although if you believe the latest grand jury report about church activities … no, I don’t think I’ll go there).
Anyway, I noticed Uncle’s furniture was getting a bit worn, and suggested that we visit IKEA and pick out some new stuff for him. We knew exactly what we wanted — a modestly priced sofa and easy chair and footstool.
I had made a prior trip to the store without Uncle. To facilitate matters, my wife and I had made the choice and carried pictures of the items home to Uncle and gotten his quick agreement. I assured Uncle, after re-measuring the available space in his apartment, that the second trip to buy the furniture would be a snap, so he came along.
I think things began to go downhill when Uncle realized that, no matter what I had told him, IKEA was not a furniture chain that originated in Milan. I think it was the Swedish meatballs on the IKEA menu that clinched it. The disappointment of Mamma Mia! was perhaps too fresh in his mind.
We began our trek at 2 p.m. on a Saturday with hopes high. Catalogue in hand, we went directly to the second level to the sofa and chair. (We had already decided that, to make things even easier, we would get the items delivered.)
The first thing you notice about IKEA is that it’s harder to find a salesperson than it is to find a brunette in Sweden. IKEA apparently is Swedish for "no salesperson." Fortunately we found a customer, also wandering aimlessly in search of help, who advised us that we had to go to the computer center to enter our order.
It was then that we noticed the store is larger than a soccer field, with restrooms more scarce than a Swedish standup comic. Apparently IKEA also means "full bladder."
At the computer center, we found that we couldn’t enter our order without an ID number, which could only be obtained from a salesperson (see above joke for the scarcity of salespeople). We were able to get an IKEA staffer on the house phone and, 25 minutes later, a sales associate showed up to help us enter our order into the computer.
With the printout in hand, we were next directed to a specific aisle and bin number in a distant warehouse for the items. It was 4 p.m. when we arrived in the warehouse. By now Uncle had uttered several profanities against blonde Nordic types and we still had not come upon a restroom. But at least we were finally at our destination, or at least we thought so.
The sales associate turned over a hand truck to me loaded with the chair and footstool and directed us to the checkout area, the approximate length of another soccer field. Uncle by now had cursed Anita Ekberg, Ingmar Bergman and Ingemar Johansson. We began another 30-minute walk. I mentioned casually that we had covered more ground than Lewis and Clark, and Uncle said they didn’t sound like Swedes to him.
Uncle asked where do we get the sofa and was told that we had to go to home delivery. I had picked up a few small items along the way, which I loaded onto a moving conveyor belt without realizing that we had to package them ourselves. The clerk pointed to bags and wrapping paper at the far end of the counter. By now my items were rapidly moving away with me and Uncle in hot pursuit, much like Lucy and Ethel in the chocolate factory scene.
Our trip ended at Home Delivery, where we thought shipping the items would cost $49. However, the clerk informed us that this only guaranteed delivery curbside. If we wanted the items carried into the house, it was $69 plus a $6 fuel surcharge plus tax.
It turns out that IKEA is also Swedish for "rip-off."
