For most of recorded history, the State of Michigan wrestled with the shame of having within its borders (are you sitting down — ideally in a chair you assembled yourself?) no IKEA. None. No meatballs, no allen wrenches, no Billy Bookcases, nothing. It was a four hour drive to Chicago for a $12 picture frame or 4 hours (Canadian) in the opposite direction to Toronto for a portable kitchen cart island with stainless steel pot hooks and butcherblock top.
We celebrated the end of this epoch of shame as a family today with an outing to the IKEA in Canton where our lovely, beautiful, adorable, fun, charming, happy, sweet little girl found herself transmogrified into the untamed whirling dervish she-demon spawn of a hummingbird and a sleep-deprived monkey. She ran, she screamed, she opened cabinets, she tried to make snow angels on a rug, she zipped another child’s zipper, she flung knobs and knickknacks, she scaled the back of a chair while we were cleaning up the knickknacks and rolled off onto her head, she, in short*, went completely, totally and unbelievably out of her mind loony
We were *those* parents (which is fine with us; she had a great time). We completely failed to get what we went there for (at some point the goal stopped being to make a purchase and became our rapid, safe and nonlitigiously-encumbered retreat to the car). Here’s a shot of Nora putting a place setting through its paces and what she looked like a couple of minutes after we got her back to our rolling fortress of sanity (also Swedish).
Don’t get me wrong; this was a hoot, but we’re going rapidly grey.
Speaking of Sweden: Go Wings!
* too late
