A Sunday in hell

Bryan's crew got almost all the way done with the laundry on Friday, which meant that we could start -- but not finish -- our part of the job. Which is just as well, considering how our IKEA trip went.

We rolled into the parking lot around 10:30, plans in hand. Using our vast knowledge of IKEA's secret shortcuts, we made it to the Kitchen section a few minutes later. Filled in the self-order form ("I don't want a self, I want cabinets!"), found a very cool ironing-board cabinet to replace a plain 18-inch cabinet we'd originally wanted to use, and handed the completed paperwork to the kitchen specialist.

She hemmed, she hawed. She told us that the ironing board was probably a special-order item, then added "It'll take a while for them to pull the boxes." That's OK, we assured her, we have other things to hunt down.

We spend a half-hour looking for drawer pulls and door knobs (for both the laundry and the kitchen), using the bathroom, perusing some end table options for the guest room's new configuration, and generally wandering around killing time. We eventually make our way to the exit and pay for our order, and then made our way to the Furniture Pickup zone.

Nice lady behind the counter says it'll be "30 minutes for this big of an order." Uh, OK... you've had an hour, at least, and it's not a big order -- it's just 6 cabinets and no countertops -- but whatever. We sit, we wait. It's 11:43, by the timestamp on the receipt.

I decide to kill some time by cross-checking our pick-ticket against our draft order. Sure enough, not only is the ironing board missing from the pick-ticket, it's also not on the receipt, despite appearing on the inventory sheet. Well, no time like the present. I leave Cam in the pickup zone and head back up to Kitchens.

Little missy sighs, fixes the order, and sends me back to the cashier. At no time does she apologize, which rattles me so deeply that I actually mutter "sorry" as I walk away... somewhere my dino-brain feels compelled that SOMEONE should apologize, I guess.

I head back to the register, and pay for the missing piece, feeling bad that Cam will now have to wait even longer for one stupid part. Little do I know...

He's still sitting there, no cart full of cabinets in sight. It's been 45 minutes, now -- 12:30 and counting. 2 full hours since the parking lot. Okayyy...

I head to the pickup counter and politely ask what might be the trouble. "It takes a long time to pull a kitchen," mutters the delightful girl behind the counter as she sulks away. Again, no apology.

15 more minutes later, and I am pissed. I walk back up to the counter, and ask what is up. I get the same lame excuse, and this time, I let her have it. Nicely.

"Look, I don't mean to be a pain, but I have been waiting an hour now. The woman who checked us in said 30 minutes." She shrugs, and walks off again.

I retreat to our bench, and look up the number for the store on my phone. 20 minutes of phone-tree hell later, I get a very nice, but utterly unhelpful rep on the line who tells me she's not physically at the store, and the way to get a manager is to ask any employee, who can page one.

I stroll into the Returns area, and ask a woman there if I could speak to a floor manager. She asks what's wrong, I tell her, and she says "An hour and a half???" Yep: I show her the receipt, time-stamped 11:43. She gets on her phone, and 5 minutes later, a manager comes to talk, and walks me back to Pickup.

Again, I hear "It takes a long time to pick a kitchen." It's not a kitchen, it's SIX FLIPPING CABINETS. But whatever. I explain to her that I would have been happy to wait, but if I'd been told it was going to be 2 hours, we could have (a) gone to lunch (b) priced appliances at Expo, around the corner or (c) gone and taken a nap in the car. Still, not a soul has even said as much as "I'm sorry" or even indicated this is unusual.

20 minutes later, our order comes out. The manager tells me there's a door missing, and they'll UPS it to us. Even after I ask, she offers no documentation for this arrangement, so I write the part number and description on our reciept with a note that says "MISSING per [her name] -- will UPS 3-5 days".

Nobody checks the remaining items against the inventory list, so we do. And -- lo and behold -- there's another part missing. Actually, three: A trio of drawer fronts. We bring the pick-sheet back to the desk, and wait another 15 minutes for the package to emerge. And we FINALLY leave. Holy. Flipping. Crap. -- It's 2:30.


And then we load the car.
Miraculously, everything fits either in or on top of the car quite easily. But we feel like we've been hit by a semi... and we haven't even touched a tool.

We get home and it's close to 4. Unload the boxes, and assemble the tall pantry and the two corner cabinets. Even though the directions are the same as every other time, the parts as foolproof as ever, we each flub at least two or three steps -- we're exhausted and stepped-on. We put the doors on the pantry and call it a day.

I really do love IKEA and their cabinets -- this is the fourth time we've worked with them, and they're head and shoulders above other brands. But damn, that Emeryville IKEA sucks with great suckingness. I don't know if I will ever be able to convince Cameron to go back.