I suspect that IKEA IS Dante's Ninth Circle of Hell

I was never really a huge fan of IKEA but I was also never really a huge hater of IKEA either; not like Mr. Lemony Lemonade. Never before and hopefully never again will there be someone who hates IKEA as viscerally as Mr. Lemony Lemonade. Secretly, or not so secretly, he is convinced that IKEA is really just a thinly veiled Scandinavian conspiracy to drive middle class furniture purchasers into bankruptcy as a result of ill-advised purchases of pseudo-funky, overpriced furniture with names like EKTORP and VERUKA.

Inevitably, any Lemony Lemonade family trip to IKEA involves the following phases:

Step 1: Mr. Lemony Lemonade agrees to go to IKEA to pick up (ahem) much needed piece of modular furniture
Step 2: Enter IKEA after utilising "family friendly" parking spot for families with children
Step 3: Mr. Lemony Lemonade manages to casually browse through two or three fake living space montages
Step 4: Mr. Lemony Lemonade visibly stiffens and begins to mutter about the location of "the bloody shortcuts"
Step 5: Mr. Lemony Lemonade nods to any suggestion made to him and begins walking double quick toward the cash
Step 6: Mr. LL enters the "marketplace" and descends into full-blown IKEA induced hysteria, searching frantically for ways to avoid the bedding section (my favourite)
Step 7: Mr. LL wears visible scowl and starts to use four letter expletives, cursing everything from IKEA's diabolical marketing campaigns (bins of ice cube trays for $2) to IKEA's wafting of cinnamon bun scent throughout the store
Step 8: Mr. LL begins to bleat plaintively in an octave that is only audible to canines and (unfortunately) me
Step 9: Mr. LL waits in epic cash-out line-up developing eye twitch. Visibly tears up when required to pony up hundreds of hard-earned dollars to pay for aforementioned (shite) modular furniture
Step 10: I am forced to assist Mr. LL from the shop as he is rendered catatonic by all things IKEA
Step 11: Mr. LL recovers from IKEA visit and swears off all and any future visits while attempting to assemble enormous wall unit with nothing but an allen key and what remains of his sanity

Much to Mr. Lemony Lemonade's chagrin, since moving to Hong Kong, we have discovered that our North American furniture is, well, obese and as such, just won't fit into our anorexic flat. So upon our arrival, the Herculean task of finding appropriate, functional and reasonably priced furniture began. Oh, and let's keep in mind that Mr. Lemony Lemonade's ulcer from the last round of furniture purchases in 2004/2005 has only recently healed. I thought that being in China, the birthplace of most of the world's cheaply made and mass produced products would mean that we would be able to furnish our flat from top to bottom for about $15. Apparently, however, this is not the case. Additionally, I also believed that being in China and more specifically, Hong Kong would mean that we would be spoilt for choice and that when we couldn't find something, we could have it made for peanuts. Again, not so. Instead, everyone and I mean everyone told me, when asked for recommendations for where to buy furniture, "go to IKEA of course." So, I basically travelled halfway around the world to an incredibly exotic locale only to have my flat outfitted in pre-fab Scandinavian plywood shite furniture that can be found in any country or college dorm throughout the world.

All of this would be fine if I could go to IKEA calmly and without duress and make my selections of said crapacious furniture in peace and quiet. Unfortunately, I have been going to IKEA with Baby Girl ALONE and Baby Girl appears to have inherited the "I GO CRAZY IN IKEA" gene from Mr. Lemony Lemonade. On a normal day, I can usually depend upon 10 to 20 minutes of cooperative behaviour and a further 10 to 20 minutes of uncooperative behaviour coerced or bribed out of Baby Girl with something like the promise of "Old MacDonalds" or cold hard cash. IKEA though, brings out the very best in Baby Girl including screaming at the top of her lungs, throwing things, running into people at top speed, hiding, attempting to kill herself and other fun and exciting toddler undertakings. I know this because I have now spent a ridiculous amount of time in IKEA with a three year old who is clearly suffering from some sort of furniture store mania. Over the past few weeks, I have simultaneously attempted to juggle light fixtures and bath mats while chasing Baby Girl through the sofa maze. All of this is accomplished while Baby Girl is running around as if on fire while wrapped in a gauze net ripped from a princess bed in the children's section, evading store staff frantic to stop her un-Scandinavian like rampage. I can't even see the IKEA catalogue anymore without breaking into a sweat.

Today's trip demonstrated that even armed with two additional adults, Baby Girl's IKEA mania is still unmanageable as she quite handily brought the entire bedroom storage section to a standstill in order to orchestrate a film short shot by Oldest Uncle (a.k.a. Middle Brother) with my cell phone. Poor Oldest Uncle was only attempting to placate the three year old beast in order that I be able to make a single, solitary decision without collapsing into the fetal position and begging for a bottle of Vicadin. I of course was forced, as always, to leave the bleeding store with only a fraction of my shopping list accomplished. Currently, all three adults (myself included) are sitting catatonic in front of a television silently wondering if any amount of alcohol and/or medication will erase the horror of Baby Girl at IKEA.

just in case you thought that hong kong wasn't the coolest place on earth

I have been meaning to get back to my recap but alas, I have been embroiled in the Dante's inferno that is moving. Currently, I am attempting to select a wall colour for the new flat that doesn't look like complete crap. I have now gone through what I assumed were three varying shades of white only to discover that once on the walls they were violet, blue and peach. Apparently somewhere in the move I have gone completely colour blind. The most tragic part of all of this is that this is just further evidence of my ongoing decline into complete and utter senility. Mr. Lemony Lemonade is convinced now more than ever that my mental faculties are leaving me at an alarming rate and unfortunately I have recently exhibited a worrying inability to make even the most mundane decisions. Therefore, Mr. Lemony Lemonade is left to wonder where his previously decisive wife of at least average intelligence has gone. But that is not why I have felt compelled to post.

In case I was searching for a reason to absolutely love Hong Kong, which I'm not, but if I was, I found it just yesterday. While purchasing Baby Girl's Chicken McNugget Happy Meal at Old MacDonald's yesterday, I discovered (please take a silent pause here to prepare for the astounding news I am about to impart) that MacDonald's in Hong Kong serves breakfast ALL DAY LONG (take another pause to absorb the enormity of this news). And how do you ask did I discover this beyond amazing fact; well, I happened to glance over at the woman next to me who I observed to be tucking into a Sausage McMuffin at approximately 3 p.m. I am ashamed to say that I was so excited that not only did I put the poor woman off her meal by staring at her with a maniacal grin on my face, I then proceeded to look like a complete lunatic as I sort of whopped and punched the air with my fist as if I had just scored a winning touchdown. Having spent numerous Saturday morning hangovers bemoaning the fact that I couldn't get a Sausage McMuffin past 10:30 a.m., which you will all agree is a totally uncivilized time to stop serving breakfast on a weekend, I welcomed this news with a tear in my eye. All the mornings that I ran bleary eyed to a nearby MacDonalds only to find that they had just stopped serving breakfast or had long since stopped serving breakfast flashed before my eyes. I had always thought that it was ridiculous not to serve those tasty morsels of goodness that are the Sausage McMuffin throughout the day. I mean why should insomniacs, truck drivers and senior citizens be the only people to enjoy the bleeding McMuffin while the rest of the world was left in a world bereft of McMuffins? If only I had known this earlier, I would have moved without a second thought in like, 1991...

recap...part un

So people here it is, my reincarnation, my new virtual home away from home. To borrow a Chinese metaphor, I initially felt upon my move from Toronto to Hong Kong like the proverbial Phoenix rising from the ashes reborn as a glam, jet setting woman, baby at my hip, husband in tow, three and a half inch Christian Louboutin heels clicking impatiently through airport terminals, sipping lychee martinis at achingly hip rooftop bars in far flung locales while exchanging witty banter with my exotic friends. That was until I found myself in glamourous Hong Kong applying for a joint account with Mr. Lemony Lemonade in a stained Old Navy t-shirt (couldn't locate anything else from the potpourri of suitcases that littered our micro-flat that masqueraded as our "temporary accommodation") at the local HSBC.

The first indignity I had to suffer, no let's make that the second, after having to wear a stained t-shirt, was that I was placed as secondary on the joint account. It was made clear to me that as an unemployed woman I was relegated to second class status given that Mr. Lemony Lemonade is now far more important than me given that he is gainfully employed and is male. The indignities did not stop there as I was further emasculated when I was forced to list my occupation as "housewife" despite my protestations and presentation of my law society membership card. The woman signing us up just looked at me as one would look at a petulant and simple-minded child.

Just when I thought that this was an isolated incident, a one-off, a minor set-back, I was similarly shamed upon applying for my Hong Kong I.D. card. The commie-deliciousness of which, (I am just gagging to have some official person demand to see "my papers") was dimished when the miliaryesque-looking immigration officer brusquely scratched out where I had written "lawyer" under occupation and wrote in large caps, "HOUSEWIFE". He didn't even ask me if I was a housewife, he just wrote it in. For all he knew, I was a bloody secret agent. In the interest of fairness, I was wearing the only, and yes, I said only, pair of jeans that I was allowed to pack and they were all stretched out and very UNCUTE; they were, dare I say, matronly and frumpy so, he is forgiven for mistaking me for a housewife but he didn't have to act so short when I suggested that "IT GIRL" was a good compromise.

So, I am now a housewife, a term that rankles mostly because it fails to imply exotic friends, high heel clicking, martini drinking and all things rockstar. Instead it implies bake sales, high waisted trousers, mini-vans and all things boring. Speaking of boring...before I bore you to tears with petty semantics and personal insecurities, I must digress and fill you in on the comings and goings of the Lemony Lemonades over the past month; for now, I will review the mechanics of the actual move day as this post is reaching novella proportions.

We shaped up and shipped out November 2, 2007 after a move that was painful but much less painful thanks to very efficient movers who packed everything and I mean everything; right down to the brass tacks (I literally watched him wrap up tacks). As our bits and pieces were packed aboard a freighter bound for the Far East, we packed our bags and headed for the airport. The best bit of this part of the journey was the actual, physical act of packing; something that never fails to raise veins on Mr. Lemony Lemonade's temples, beads of sweat on his upper lip and makes his right eye twitch very unattractively. He has become such a packing worry wart that he has developed the somewhat useful but clearly compulsive ability to actually assess the over-weightedness of a suitcase without the assistance of a scale. Just by standing there flexing the suitcase in his hand he is able to decree what will pass and what won't. Given the three of us travelling there were six cases, 25 lbs. each and believe me when I say that they were packed within ounces of their respective weight allowance. This in and of itself was enough to give Mr. Lemony Lemonade cold sweats and a facial tick but as we checked in, large numbers of passengers ahead of us in the line were having their cases rejected as too heavy and they were forced to endure the humiliation of having to unpack and repack right before Mr. Lemony Lemonade's terror-stricked eyes. "But for the grace of God", Mr. Lemony Lemonade was no doubt thinking...or more accurately, "sodding, bloody, Lemony Lemonade's goddamned 15 pairs of goddamned shoes..." At this point, he was convinced that in moments he was going to be one of the wretched souls on his knees before the entire world as the contents of our cases spilled out around him. The very thought brought him to the very brink of speechlessness.

Had this, very likely scenario come to pass, I have every reason to believe that this would push poor Mr. Lemony Lemonade right over the edge. He would go completely, stark, raving mad and I have no doubt that he would require sedation and possibly a straitjacket to be kept from beating me senseless with one of my 15 pairs of shoes. Had he been hooked up to a heart monitor at this juncture it would easily have registered an infaction or a stroke.

Needless to say, the bags were brilliantly packed (par moi) and passed with flying colours. In fact, there were a few ounces to spare and I quietly lamented the patent leather ballet flats that I had to leave behind.

For me, the cases were a non-starter though as the real issue wasn't the 15 pairs of shoes and mere ounces and pounds, it was instead the possibility of 15 hours trapped in an aluminium tube with a three year old who had developed a penchant for pointless, out of control screaming. Baby Girl has diabolically discovered that screaming uncontrollably in public makes Mommy and Daddy sweat and promise all sorts of great things like candy and cash. I was already in a bit of a lather having felt the heat of anxiety emanating from my fellow passengers at the boarding gate. It was all for naught, however, as Baby Girl gleefully discovered that air travel is a grand excuse for cramming in unlimited amounts of tv watching. I silently thanked the technology Gods for developing the in-flight personal entertainment device as it was the only thing standing between myself and a lynching by my fellow travellers. Although Baby Girl was a dream and managed to watch more hours of consecutive television than any other toddler ever, we are now deep in the throes of having to wean Baby Girl off the "junk" that is television and it's not pretty. As I write this, I about to negotiate turning off the tv for dinner, something that will no doubt involve chocolate, promises of trips to the Zoo, or God forbid, another trip to Disneyland Asia (more on that later).

I am exhausted, just recalling all of this, so I have to stop there and will recap more later...