Adventures with Ikea. And POS Pickups

(post copyright 2014, Dawn Weber)

Drive to Ikea in your husband's jacked-up pickup truck and buy a couch! I said.

It will be fun! I said.

Ha ha ha!

*Sob*

Let's see. Piece-of-shit Chevy - check.  Six hours round-trip - check. Self-serve furniture store - check. Two hundred pound sofa - check.

All by myself - check.

These sound like a bunch of bad ideas, and lo, they were indeed bad ideas. Yes friends, they were.

Oh, the things I will do for some cheap Scandinavian furniture.

I can't help it. Like so many Americans, whenever I get my grubby hands on the tax-refund check each spring, I start thinking thoughts that involve heavy lifting and rampant spending. That's how I found myself one recent Saturday, driving, sweating, cussing and wondering if I'd make it to Cincinnati in the husband's POS Silverado.  

That truck. Four-wheel drive, relatively new (for us), nice interior, white with silver trim - great-looking, yes, but it runs terribly. I call it the supermodel of pickup trucks: easy on the eyes, but otherwise, pretty much worthless.

It's been in the shop at least nine times in the 1.5 years we've owned it, for various reasons ranging from ignition troubles to transmission problems to vague sensor issues that have left our mechanic scratching his head, saying, "Hell, I don't know what's wrong with it!" then handing us a $650 invoice for 28 hours of labor.

The husband bought the pickup on his own. He did not have my helpful guidance and vast mechanical expertise when he made this purchase, and we ended up with a piece of shit. In case he forgets, I like to periodically remind him:

"This truck is a piece of shit!"

"I know, dear. You've mentioned it."

We just had an alignment and some new tires installed, but one of the truck's latest major problems is some kind of issue that leaves you bopping down the road as if driving on four basketballs - only bouncier - and it was in this state that I spent that particular Saturday thumping south on I-71 to the Ikea store.  Anything above 65 m.p.h. made the shimmying unmanageable. So I rattled along in the slow lane at 62, glaring at the campers, the Buicks, the box-turtles on the side of the road as they passed me.

I drove. I sweated. I cussed.

Around noon, I became incredibly hungry. I also had to pee, which was no surprise: If I'm breathing, I have to pee. But I wouldn't stop for any of this, as I knew that if I did so, I might not start again.

You do not tarry with basic needs when driving the POS Chevy.  

The husband had stayed behind to watch the kids and take our son to ball practice. Since he wasn't around for the joy of this trip, I decided to call him up and give him my valuable opinion.

"Hello?" he said.

"This truck is a piece of shit!"

"I know, dear. You've mentioned it."

"That is all."  

*Click*

I hung up on him, so that I could better focus on seething, bouncing and glaring.

After many days, hours, years, it seemed, my basketballs and I thumped thankfully into the Cincinnati Ikea parking lot, right along with what appeared to be the entire state of Ohio. And Indiana.

And most of Kentucky.

Apparently, the people of the Midwest - and part of the south - had also received their federal income tax refunds that week, and decided on a fun day of seething humanity and cheap Scandinavian furniture.

I grabbed one of the last available parking spots and rushed inside. Sprinting to the restroom, I gratefully emptied, washed up and headed to the sales floor, where I joined the tri-state area as they trudged, like dead-eyed zombies, through the giant super-mega-store.

Thanks to my harrowing trip down the interstate, I didn't have energy to deal with the throngs of people crowding every inch of available space. Babies crying, children whining, elderly folks stopping in the middle of the aisles . . . Ikea is set up like a giant maze, constantly clogged with human traffic, and there are really not many shortcuts. If you don't know where you're going or what you want for sure - which I didn't - you have to snake through the entire store with all the other dummies to your eventual goal: the warehouse section and cheap Scandinavian furniture in boxes.

Big boxes.

Very big boxes.

I arrived at my destination and stared open-mouthed at Ektorp, the sofa I'd chosen, inside its mammoth carton. The physics alone were frightening: I am 5'2" and weigh, well, none of your business, but the box looked to be roughly twice my size on both counts, and I wondered how in the world I was supposed to get it from the shelf to the cart without flattening myself like an ant. In true self-serve Ikea fashion, personnel were nowhere around, and as I stood and contemplated the box 'o sofa, an old, stooped woman paused beside me.

"You need some help with that, honey?"

I turned and eyed my fellow customer: white-haired, frail, a couple inches shorter than me - I doubted her couch-lifting abilities.  "Well, yeah, but are you sure?"

I should not have doubted.

She whipped my buggy to the front of the box, wedged it underneath, stood aside and pushed the sofa down with a flick of her wrinkly wrist. The carton landed with a confident whump!, stable and ready to roll.

"Wow! Thanks! That was just . . . amazing."

"I come here all the time," she said. "That's how you do it. Just flip it down."

Couch on cart, I thanked her again and re-joined the populations of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky at the registers, where we waited oh, four, five hours to check out? I don't know.

Time has no meaning at Ikea.

I should have taken a nap. By the time a rare stock-boy and I wrestled the gargantuan box into the pickup, I was once again exhausted.

And I had a bigger issue.

The carton, too long for the bed of the truck, tilted up and rested on the closed tailgate, which would be no problem except that our particular tailgate latch is - you guessed it - broken, and given to popping open at the slightest pressure. I had no rope, and no help again, as the elusive Ikea stock-boy had vanished into the ether, so I shrugged, started the engine and shimmied onto the freeway, anticipating the worst.

Driving, thumping, driving, 62 m.p.h., my eyes flipped maniacally between road and rearview mirror. I fully expected the shuddering tailgate to collapse at any time, my hard-won cheap couch crushing cars Godzilla-like as it bounced to the side of the road.

I drove. I sweated. I cussed.  

Hours went by, and I grew hungry again. I had to pee, again. And turtles and Buicks passed me. Again.

It was time once more to give my valuable opinion. I dialed the husband, who picked up the phone without saying hello.

"I know, dear. You've mentioned it."

*Click*

Huh. He hung up on me. I can't imagine why.

Eventually, finally, amazingly, the decades passed, and I made it, shuddering up the driveway at 8 p.m., angry and spent. I rushed in the house, shouted "Never again!" and pushed the children down on the way to the bathroom.

Never again indeed. I had been to Ikea before, but not alone, not for a large couch, and definitely not in a POS Chevy. It was a harrowing, epic journey in three or four parts, a terrifying odyssey I will not repeat.

Ladies, ladies, by all means: Learn from my mistakes, and mark my words. A trip to Ikea requires strategy, patience, fortitude and preferably, Xanax. Before you go, make sure that you rest up. Eat something. Pee often. Bring along some sort of willing male - or an old, stooped woman - then, ride shotgun and get drunk. 

All the better.

And for the love of God and cheap Scandinavian furniture, please, I beseech you: Take a functioning pickup. Do not borrow ours.

Because I don't know if I've mentioned it, but that truck is a piece of shit.

Soup In My Hair

(post copyright 2014, Dawn Weber)

I'm the most excited I've ever been with my pants on.

Not good to end a sentence with a preposition, but such is the depth of my enthusiasm. That's because I recently lost a bunch of weight, thanks to a diet of Really Depressing Food.

I know, I know - nobody wants to hear about my diet/exercise plan unless I've choked on some tofu or fallen off the treadmill. But I tell you this because I was a little confused and shocked about how it happened at first. I've been dieting and exercising pretty much since puberty. With a few short-lived exceptions, I've never had much success.

So I sat down and thought about it and finally put two and two together, and I came to the conclusion that the weight loss resulted from my diet of Depressing Food and Very Bad Beer. You'll have to read about the Very Bad Beer part of the equation in my upcoming book, but I can tell you all about the Depressing Food:

Soup.

And more soup. Soup for lunch, soup for dinner, soup all the time. A gott-dang liquid diet. Apparently, I'm 80.

My disappointing, old-lady meal plan happened by accident. I started bringing Progresso Italian Wedding soup into work for lunch each day, because it's very good. And no - Progresso isn't paying me to tell you that. Although they should.

You can trust me when I say it's yummy wedding soup, because I grew up in greater Youngstown, Ohio. My DNA may say I'm a pasty little German woman, but at times, I'm pretty sure I have some Italian in me.

Oh wait - he's German, too.

But my point, and I had one here, is that thanks to the mother lodes of incredible cuisine I grew up enjoying with my Italian friends and their old-country grannies, I know authentic recipes when I taste them. And even though it's canned, this stuff is fantastic. Since it's relatively low fat and high in protein, I started bringing it to the office and eating it in my soul-killing cubicle for lunch. I work so late that I eat dinner there, too. What do I have? Exactly. More soup.

I wanted some variety, and eventually began eating other kinds in addition to the wedding soup. But still, it's always the same thing: another day, another meal, another exciting can of soup. For more than a year.

That's when it started to get depressing. Because although I like the stuff, I will admit it's become disheartening that I eat it all the damn time. I suppose I could change things up and bring in other foods - sandwiches, salads, those crappy little Budget Barf frozen dinners - but buying and fixing new things would require some planning, and as a rule, I'm against planning. I avoid planning whenever possible.

So, even though it's dismal, soup it is. And while slurping my 309,873rd bowl the other day, I glanced down to find I had a guest for lunch:

My hair.

Yes, it's so long that it hung from my head directly into the chicken broth, where the strands mingled languidly with the spinach, noodles and meatballs. I've needed a haircut for a while, but in typical senior-citizen fashion, I can't seem to remember to call and make an appointment. The only day I ever seem to think about calling the salon is on Monday. And when is the salon closed? Mm-hmm. Monday. I could work a little harder to get an appointment for a haircut, but again, that requires planning. See comment re: avoiding planning, above.

Back to the day of the sloppy strands. I stood up and lurched to the restroom, trying not to drip on my clothing, then bent over the sink and attempted to rinse lunch from my hair. But without shampoo, I really couldn't quite get all the food out, so I went about the rest of my day at the office with brothy bangs.

And later that afternoon, eating my usual liquid dinner in front of the computer, guess what happened?

Yep.

I lurched to the bathroom, again, trying not to drip soup on my clothing, again, and attempted to rinse pasta and spinach off my head.

Again.

With my cranium under the faucet, I wondered what was saddest about the situation: A) The fact that I can't remember to get a haircut; B) The fact that I eat the same thing twice a day, almost every day; or C) The fact that I'm under 85 and there was actual soup in my actual hair.

I stood up and looked in the mirror. All of a sudden, there in my darkest, most geriatric hour, I had an epiphany and became inspired to create something.

That's right. I wrote a song about it. Wanna hear it? Here it go:

Soup in my hair, soup in my hair,

Lookin' like a fool with some soup in my hair.

I finished singing my little song, then I smiled the smile of the mentally ill.

And I kept grinning. Because as my eyes traveled further down my reflection, I saw something I hadn't seen in years:

Pants that actually fit.

No, I decided, even with a twice-basted coif, things weren't so bad. Soup in the hair beats a hair in the soup.

Anyway, what can I say?

Soup happens.

See You Later, Hobo

(Post copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

I wrote the following piece for my book, but it was one of two serious essays that didn't quite fit. I posted a brief excerpt of this last year, but not the whole thing.

You're nervous. I can tell.

You chew intently on your bottom lip from the car seat, up the sidewalk, to the building. You're three-and-a-half years old. Just a little guy.

It's your first day of preschool, held in a classroom at the district's middle school. We stop to snap a picture outside. What a place, I'm thinking, for the administration to locate a preschool, the intermediate building, the spot where kids endure the specific circle of hell that is junior high.  

So I've dressed you in the nicest outfit you own, spiked your hair and slapped some labels on you to keep the bullies away - Levi's, Tommy Hilfiger. I've bought a wee Spiderman backpack and filled it with only bare necessities - a lunch box, a blanket, a light jacket.

I made sure: Everything you need is in your pack. The thing only weighs two pounds, tops, but even as small as it is, its size and heft threaten to topple you. You wear it like a tiny, wobbly homeless man - like a little hobo failure. But you don't complain.

You seldom do.

I've been looking forward to this for a while now. I'm going back to work, you're starting pre-school. We have been home together for two and a half years. It was mostly wonderful - and sometimes awful - and the fact that I feel this way makes me horribly, heart-wrenchingly, gut-clenchingly guilty.

Time at home hadn't been my idea. I was part of a mass corporate layoff shortly after your birth, and my fast-paced, jet-setting world quickly became Barney, burp cloths, the couch.

I should have been grateful - and partly, I was. The rest of me missed my career -  the adult companionship, the paychecks, the capability to buy new shoes. I'd been working since I was 11 years old. I didn't quite know what to make of myself without a job. I didn't know who I was, and I felt lonely. I felt scared.

I felt trapped.

But there wasn't a choice. Plus, as everyone told me over and over again, there are much worse things in life than a mother staying home with her baby.

So I plucked you from the crib each morning, pulled you close and patted your back, and you always, ALWAYS patted mine in return. I changed your smelly, urine-soaked diaper - swollen to the size of a pillow - and I gave you a bottle. Then, we plopped down Indian-style, I pulled you into the space between my knees and began searching the paper in vain for something it would take me 2.5 years to find - a job that paid enough to cover child care.

A job that paid enough for me to leave you again.

You never asked for much then, but you insisted on a few things - Dora/Barney/Elmo on the TV, and you had to have something - always something - to clutch in your hand: blocks, Matchbox cars, superheroes. We didn't have much money with only one paycheck. So for our big days out, you and I went to the McDonald's Playplace where you ate ice cream, then crawled amongst the kids and bacteria while I read the paper, still looking for a job.

After every meal, drink and snack, you quite enjoyed using my shirt and shoulder as your personal towel. Not for you, napkins and hankies, no sir. You wiped on mom, pressing your mouth into my shoulder and turning your head back and forth to leave a slimy trail of spit and snot and God-knows-what right below my clavicle. For years, all my shirts had the same stain, though the colors varied. I'm glad I was the one changing your diapers. Given a choice, I have a good idea where you'd have decided to wipe your rear.

Towards the end of our stint, you lost the diapers and began talking, and those were the best of times, the days you leaned your head back on my t-shirt, heaved a contented sigh and said things like:

"Ahh, boobies. I like boobies!"

You are your father's son.

And we made the best of things, you and me.

All of this runs through my head as I walk you through the hallways to your room. I look down at you, you look up at me, still chewing your lip, and I know we're both thinking the same thing. Let's turn around. Let's go to McDonald's.

Let's go home.

I might do it. I might pick you up and carry you to the car. Because all those times I'd wished for one hour, one nano-second, one new pair of shoes for myself - I take them back. I don't want you to go.

Still, it is time to go.

We have reached your room. We hang your coat and pack in your locker, then I pull you close and hug you goodbye. You pat my back.

And I leave you with the teachers.

From the hallway, I peek through the window and I see: You are terrified. I can tell. You chew on your bottom lip.  

You don't cry, though. You seldom cry.

But I do. All the way back into work.

___________________________________________________

My book is done - DONE, people! I'm now in the process of writing the book proposal, an extremely left-brained task for an extremely right-brained person. I don't want to tell you the book title yet, but some of the chapter titles include "Purple Hooter Problem," "Sir Snores-A-Lot" and "Perchance to Poop."

Next comes the daunting process of finding an agent and publisher. Please send good thoughts - and maybe some boxed wine.

Little Cookie Crackhead

(post copyright 2012, Dawn Weber)

Life: far too short to bake the cookie dough.

Don't look at me like that. You know it's true. Why, why, WHY do people insist on turning soft, sugary lumps of heaven into hard, dry, sandy desert-discs? It's an outrage.

Salmonella? Pffftt. Salmonella that doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

Oh, cookie dough. I love you so. I can taste all your ingredients individually - butter, brown sugar, white sugar, salmonella. You dance on my tongue, you make me smile, you release serotonin . . .

Excuse me. I need a cigarette. And I don't even smoke.

You people call it cookie dough.

I call it crack.

Because psstt . . . come over here. I'll tell you a secret. When I was a kid? I stole stuff. Oh yes, I did. I stole cookie dough, cake mix, icing, and maybe Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs shut up right out from under my mother's and grandmother's noses.

Little cookie crackhead.

It all started with the cookie dough that I stole from the fridge. Even little thieving-thug-crackheads know that cookie dough spoils, so I snarfed it down immediately after lifting it. A few times, I got away with it. But eventually, my mother caught on. I have no idea why.

So I had to get a little more diabolical with my crime. I turned to cake mix. Straight, no chaser, out of the box, with a spoon. This too I lifted from Mom and Grandma. They didn't make cakes often, so they never seemed to remember if they had any on hand, allowing me ample opportunity to grab a box, a spoon and run to my room. Wonderful child.

Do not judge me.

Cake mix was fantastic, because cake mix? Doesn't spoil. Even little thieving-thug-crackheads know that. And after eating the quarter of a box it took to place me in a diabetic coma happy sugar high, I could close the package and keep the rest of it under my bed. For future diabetic comas sugar highs.

Verily, I shall burn in hell. For Duncan Hines yellow cake.

Little sugar crackhead.

Cocky from cake mix success, I started eyeing the box of Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs my Grandma bought for Easter each year. These were the EGGS, people. Far larger, far more awesome than the measly little Reese's cups, and I drooled and begged each year when she brought home the orange and yellow carton. Grandma knew I was a little sugar crackhead addict, and she hid the box on the steps leading to the attic.

Methinks you underestimate me, Gran.

I waited until she was on the phone, snuck up the attic steps, and loaded my pockets with Reese's eggs. I crept back down, parked myself on the floor in front of the couch and commenced snarfing. Then, I stuffed the wrappers under the sofa.

Gran: "Dawn, what happened to all the Reese's eggs?"

My plan seemed foolproof - disappearing candy, no wrappers in the trash.

It was a gott-dang Scooby Doo mystery! Clearly, I was a genius.

But unlike my mom, Gran was anal about her spring cleaning. Gran pulled out her couch a few weeks later.

Gran busted me. Methinks I underestimated Gran.

And so, lo those many years ago, my life of crime came to an end. I mended my ways, confessed in church, tried to live a good life.

Until I had kids. Kids who want cookies. Little cookie crackhead kids.

Now I have to buy cookie dough, which comes with this warning:

Do not consume raw cookie dough?

Yeah, right. Just you try and stop me.

Methinks you underestimate me, Pillsbury.

_____________________________________________________

Hope you didn't mind a little re-post, as I try to think of a subject for the 50th essay of my book. 

I'm so close to my goal!  And blocked. And panicked. Send cookie dough. Or cake mix. I mean, I am not picky!

Here's an untitled excerpt, one about life with a teenage daughter:

"Princess!" I yell up the stairs.

*Crickets*

"Oh, PRINCESSS!"

*More crickets*

She's not here right now, of course. She's seldom here. She's 16 - and a half. I really haven't seen her for six months.

When she is home, she's in her room almost constantly, very busy with her social life, her iPhone, her three-hour grooming process. Only yesterday, she was this raggedy little monkey who had to be bribed into the tub with candy, but now she drains Lake Erie with her showers. If you hear the blow dryer, you know she's home, and you'll find her upstairs, waving a Conair around her head in an urgent, determined fashion.

I don't hear a blow dryer today, and I don't feel like yelling to an empty room anymore. So I give up and decide to send her a text - our main method of communication these days.

"Exactly where the hell is my GOOD BLUSH?" I write, in a patient, motherly way.

"Oh sorry!" she texts back. "I borrowed it. It's in my room. Sorry!"

Imagine that. I figured it was up there, right beside, no doubt, my powder, my hairspray and my eyeliner . . .

Stay tuned!

Walking in a Walmart Wonderland

What would the holidays be, really, without another fine Lighten Up! Christmas Carol or two? I do it for you, people - I'm a giver like that. You're welcome. 

Or - I'm sorry, as the case may be. 

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Walking in a Walmart Wonderland 

(copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

Children scream,

Are you listening?

Then their moms,

Give them beatings,

An alarming sight, but

We're desperate tonight,

Walking in a Walmart Wonderland.

Gone away,

Is the greeter,

Here to stay,

Is the tweaker,

He lifts his meth pipe,

And asks for a light,

Walking  in a Walmart Wonderland.

In the aisle we will see a hooker,

Then pretend she's wearing lots more clothes,

We will try hard not to stare at Hooker,

And her pimp and all the other hos.

Later on, we'll get ground beef,

Near a thug who has no teeth,

A worrisome night,

We're scared for our lives,

Walking  in a Walmart Wonderland.

In the canned goods we will find a scooter,

Blocking access to the vegetables,

Big, fat guy just sitting on his scooter,

Getting green beans as he picks his nose.

Now it’s time to pay and go,

Might as well set up camp though,

Thirty-eight lanes - just one is open,

Walking in a Walmart Wonderland.

Walking in a Walmart Wonderland . . .

Walking in a Walmart Wonderland . . .

"We Wish You A Merry Christmas?" Nope. "I Hope I Get Wine for Christmas."

(copyright 2013, Dawn Weber)

I hope I get wine for Christmas;

I hope I get wine for Christmas;

I hope I get wine for Christmas;

'Cause I am flat broke.

I don't care if it's shiraz or merlot;

Just bring me some wine for Christmas -

Since pot's a no-no.

Oh, bring me some beer for Christmas;

Oh, bring me some beer for Christmas;

Oh, bring me some beer for Christmas;

A six-pack's just fine.

We'd all like some hooch at Christmas;

We'd all like some hooch at Christmas;

We'd all like some hooch at Christmas;

If we told the truth.

So buy me some wine for Christmas;

So buy me some wine for Christmas;

So buy me some wine for Christmas;

Or vodka would do!

___________________________________________________________

"Jingle Bell Rock?" Nope. "Santa's a Chick."

(Couldn't resist re-posting my top radio hit from last year, "Santa's a Chick." Lyrics copyright 2012, Dawn Weber)

Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Santa's a chick,
She lacks a dick, Santa's a chick,
No dude could do all they say that he does,
Only chicks could get all that done.

Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Santa's a chick,
Ain’t that a kick, Santa’s a chick,
Bakin’ and wrappin’ and deckin’ the hall,
With her wine bottle!

What a headache, how her back aches,
Fifty-nine things to do,
It's pure chaos, runs her ass off,
Most of these men don't even have a clue.

Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Santa’s a girl,
All 'round the world, Santa’s a girl,
Started her list around June 24,
Men they wait until the day before.

Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Santa has boobs,
Thirty-six Cs, average boobs,
Bouncing and flouncing all over the mall,
Since the early fall!

On Black Friday, she’s up early,
Left before the crack of dawn,
Flat-screen TVs, she’d like one, please,
“I'm sorry ma’am - they’re already gone.”

Hurry up, Santa Chick, get the hell home,
Cookies don't make themselves,
Hubs he's asleep and he's no help at all,
That's why Santa's a . . .
Surely Santa's a . . .
That's why Santa's a chick!

_______________________________________________

I am still plugging along on the book, and guess what? I have only FIVE MORE CHAPTERS TO GO to reach my goal! It's been awesome and awful, exhausting and exhilarating. But I am almost to my goal of 50 essays - 50,000 words - in a year. I am pretty damn proud of that.

Here's a chapter with the tentative title "Made of Money:"

. . ."Hey Mom," he said. "I need a laptop."

I glanced into the sunroom where, sitting on the desk, was what appeared to be his laptop.

"Um . . . " I pointed to the desk. "Isn't that your laptop right there?"

"Yeah, but I need a NEW laptop."

I cocked my head and tried to remember back to when I'd spent a stack of perfectly good U.S. dollars - several hundred of them, in fact - to buy the computer for him, the one that sat gleaming in the sunlight. It wasn't hard to recall. I'd just bought the thing.

"Son," I said, trying to control my bubbling blood pressure, "I got that laptop for you less than a year ago. What are you talking about?"

"Yeah, but it's not very good. Minecraft runs soooo sloowwww on it."

I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes hoping for some patience, since my own notebook computer dates to the previous presidential administration, and - I might add - works just fine . . .

Stay tuned!