wow it's raining hard out here

i guess living in seattle gets you accustomed to gloomy skies and light drizzle 9 months out of the year. on the way home tonight, it was raining really hard and it was kind of refreshing to see contrasting weather once again - reminds me of michigan.

also on my way home tonight, i stopped by ikea to pick up some new furniture. the thing is, i drive a small compact car and i needed to buy a new bed and some dressers. for some reason, i had convinced myself that i could fit the pieces for a queen size bed frame, 2 dressers and a nightstand all in the back of my poor little toyota celica. being from the online generation, i had already scoured ikea.com and knew exactly what i wanted to get. i tried to quickly run through the showroom and find the items so i could jot down where to find the flat packed boxes in the self-serve warehouse. of course, i got lost somewhere in between living rooms and kitchens; i probably spent a good 20 minutes circling around taking "shortcuts" through the store.

after the showroom adventure, i finally found my way to the warehouse and realized how big the pieces for a queen size bed are. undeterred, i decided that i would try to fit it in my car anyways. so i loaded up my cart and went to checkout where i chose the slowest checkout line in the history of checkout lines. this gave me a lot of time to mentally visualize fitting all these huge boxes in my trunk. in my mind, i still saw it working out. after what felt like forever, it was finally my turn and i checked out, wheeled my furniture to the loading area and pulled my car up.

when i got out of my car, i looked at my cart and then at my trunk and thought: oh no. a queen size headboard is definitely not meant to fit in my hatchback. defeated, i went to find an ikea worker to inquire about shipping options. he took a look and said, "hey man, shipping is going to cost you at least $59. this stuff will fit, you want me to try?"

i figured this would be a fun exercise in frustration so i agreed to give it a go. i folded down the back seats, jammed my front seats as far forward as i could and we started loading stuff in. remarkably, the guy was able to get everything to fit in there on the first try. i was pretty impressed. the only problem was, i had slid my seat so close to the wheel that i physically wasn't able to drive anymore.

remarkably, the ikea guy was nice enough to help me unpack my car and repack it a couple more times until it finally all fit in there with my seat at a normal position. i must admit, this was the most fun i'd ever had at ikea.

so now my car is packed full of ikea boxes to be unloaded at my new apartment tomorrow :) many thanks to the ikea worker who helped me load my stuff, it definitely was the best customer service i've had in a while.