New friends, flat packs and fisting

I hate Ikea.

I don't object to their furniture. I don't object to their meatballs. I don't object to their stupid names for things.

I just detest the whole experience.

Traipsing out to an industrial wasteland on the edge of town.

Feeling depressed by the people running out of the store clutching 2 euro vases that they think hold the secret to happiness.

Trying to find an 'assistant' to 'assist'.

The fact that you can't get in and out in fifteen minutes.

So, it was with a heavy heart that I accepted le FP's request to go to Ikea last night. We've needed new wardrobes for, like, ever and last night a friend was offering to take us out there in his car. We couldn't really say no.

The friend is a guy who le FP knows vaguely and I know even less well. I have a feeling he's after a threesome. He keeps on doing us both favours and turning up at the house with gifts for us. Anyway, I digress.

We don't know him that well, but last time I saw him, he was in a bar wearing 'military' gear (i.e. a camouflage jacket, a khaki string vest and green make up on his cheeks) and heading off to a 'specialist' evening in a salle de fêtes in the suburbs.

He spent the entire journey recounting his evening at the 'Soirée Cuir, Latex, Uniforme'. Now, these kind of salles de fêtes cater to marriages, funerals and barmitzvahs - you know the kind of establishment.

What they'll have thought of this fetish evening, God only knows.

Apparently, there was pubic shaving, various swings and glory holes and - la pièce de résistance - a 'fisting podium'. But again, I digress.

We arrive at Ikea and I'm hungry. Three 50 cent hot dogs (that's how much they cost, they're not designed by the rapper) later and I'm still starving, but more willing to take on the behemoth of a store.

Actually it turns out that this Ikea is no behemoth. In fact, it's positively rikiki, the smallest Ikea on earth, quite possibly.

Nonetheless, we still manage to lose three hours within those hellish yellow and blue walls.

The friend has turned up wearing some god awful outfit that includes a badge that reads 'be happy'. I'm not sure if this is a reminder to himself or what, but he's just lost his job so I can only think it's some kind of motivational device. Anyway, he's so badly dressed that le FP and I are very happy when we manage to give him the slip somewhere behind the Billy bookcases.

He finds us again as we are busy choosing our wardrobes. He listens to us rant and wail about how the house is full of shit and how we have to stop buying things. He hears our tales of woe as we recount to the poor assistant how we have no storage space in our apartment.

He then disappears. Again.

Next time we see him we're at the checkout. He's paid and is waiting for us to be reborn into the real world - the world where tables don't have names.

He has a trolley full of shit.

When we get to the car, he presents us with a gift each.

He gives us each a 2 metre long cuddly shark. One each. I kid you not.

"Thank you" says le FP, graciously.

"Where the fuck do you expect me to put these" say I, somewhat less graciously, but worn down by the whole experience.

"I thought we could use them in the bedroom" said the friend, with a menacing look on his face.

We journeyed home in uncomfortable silence. He dropped us at the front door and we took our shopping from the boot (the wardrobes being delivered at a later date), thanked him and sent him on his way.

As we waved him off, le FP turned to me.

"Don't those sharks look lovely in his back window" he said.

He's méchant, that boy.

I guess that's why I like him....