Shopping on Lordag

Hot Texas skies over the IKEA parking lot

 

Such a day I had today. First was a family lunch to celebrate a 65^th wedding anniversary. Afterwards, since I was in that part of town, I went to IKEA. I’ve always thought it interesting how in the cities where there is an IKEA, there is but one. The Bay Area had two, but they were in two different worlds, because the bay seems just seems to be as such. So in Houston, now that I live far north of the loop, it’s a big deal to get there, so I took advantage, against my better judgment of doing so on a Saturday, of being inside the loop to do some shopping.

It’s been over twenty years since I lived in Houston, so when going back to those old parts of town I’ve mostly forgotten about, I now use my car’s navigation. I told my car I was wanting to go to IKEA. My car gave me the directions to IKEA, but I guess my car had no further information, which was a shame. I mean, she tells me about traffic and which roads are closed, why can’t she give me some really useful information, like “You’re about to make a big mistake...are you sure you don’t want to just go home?” I pulled into the IKEA parking lot and quickly began to wonder what it was that they were giving away for free.

Everyone was at IKEA. If you were not at IKEA, where the hell were you? Nothing was being given away for free, but as I was buying a “Malm” dresser (Malm having a definition as being an artificial mixture of chalk and clay for making into bricks, which didn’t seem to have anything to do with the product I purchased, but they do have some weird names in there) I did learn that everything in the store was 15% off because of Hurricane Harvey. Nice.

An old photo of the Astrodome and its huge parking lot.

IKEA has a very large parking lot. I think the only Houston parking lot I’ve ever seen that is larger was the one at the Astrodome. One would go to the Astrodome for an Astro’s ball game, or the Houston Rodeo, or a few times I saw big concerts there, like Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. It would take half an hour to walk from the car to the entrance. It was a very large parking lot.

This was IKEA on a Saturday with a 15% post hurricane sale. Every space was taken. It was to the point that I got behind a car that was slowly trailing a young man with his flat-bed cart to his car. This flat-bed cart was filled to the brim. There really was no brim, but that’s the saying that comes to mind in seeing how full this man’s cart was with boxes, crates, bags and all sorts of nifty things from Sweden, or where ever they make Turd Berglin toilets, Fartful desks, Godis Skum marshmallows, or Stenklover bedsheets. (Those are all actual product names, I’m not making them up!) I mean, I saw trucks loaded with this much stuff when I was in India a few years back, and I was always scared that they would fall over onto us as we would pass them.

So I’m behind Mr. Dood in his big black Texas branded pickup, who is trailing this poor guy who is seemingly furnishing his entire house from IKEA, and thinking, dude, it’s going to take this guy another hour to shove all this crap into his compact car. Because that’s the kind of luck I would have, that he is driving a compact car. Finally, I get around Mr. Dood and find a parking space five spaces from San Antonio! I looked back towards IKEA, now a distant blue speck wavering in the heat of the parking lot. I felt like a kid again, off to the Astrodome, but instead of bull riding and pig races, I was surrounded by what, in many ways, seemed to be the same kind of animals, just not as much riding or racing going on.

With my purchases complete, I started back to my car at the far end of the west forty. It may have been the first full day of Autumn, but no one told Houston. It was broiling outside, and the sweat was now starting to soak my shirt. I was fading fast, but soon had entertainment. In front of me was a couple looking proud of the wares they were about to take home. The husband must have been bright enough to leave the shopping to his wife, while he sat upstairs eating Kottbullar (Swedish meatballs) and Knackerbrod Rag (cookies), because he was looking over the items for the first time. She had two large boxes on the bottom of her cart and he asked why she bought two.

“They were 15% off,” she gushed, “so together, I got 30% off!”

I nearly choked, but no one seemed to notice.

He caught on pretty quickly and responded with “Well, don’t you think we should go back and get four more and get 90% off?”

She stopped dead in her tracks, “Can we do that?”

“I don’t think it works that way, dear. I’ll explain it to you later.”

They reached their car long before I did, and wouldn’t you know that they had a Trump bumper sticker!

Again, taking advantage of being in this part of town, I decided to do another stupid thing. Costco on a Saturday. I could have just as easily walked into a biker bar and made an off-hand remark about Tankwelder’s mom, for I must have been out for punishment. One of the things I love most about my job is having weekdays off for such adventures as shopping at a Costco. I learned quickly to avoid this place on weekends like a cat avoids hairballs on a hard surface and instead makes sure to aim for the carpet. But the store near me was out of the candles they had advertised on sale and I knew the one on Bunker Hill had them.

Some funny IKEA names I found on line.

If you know Costco, like IKEA, you know that parking can be troublesome. I usually just aim for the far away spots and forgo the slow search up down the rows of shiny cars. As I got closer to the entrance, I kept seeing parking spaces closer and closer to the entrance. I wound up with rock star parking, space number one. Any closer and I would have been in the handicap spaces, of which in this row, there were only two. I couldn’t believe this prime score!

The walk to the entrance was now short, which sort of made up for the long journey to and from my car at IKEA. Then my heart sank as I saw the door to the entrance had been rolled shut. It’s funny, I never before realized that the entrance doors at Costco were really garage doors that rolled up and down. There, before me, was a large sign with red letters stating that Costco, on Saturdays, closes at 6pm. I looked at my watch. It was 6:14pm. No wonder I got such a close parking space.

I could see inside the exit door. There were still quite a few checkers working down the long lines of shoppers. There were still people meandering back and forth with their oversized shopping carts of such items at twenty-pound boxes of peanuts and bags of five loaves of bread. Emboldened, I meekly approached the two employees checking receipts and gave them my most tired-looking and yet pleasing smile that I could muster.

“I know you’re closed,” I said, nearly water-eyed, “but I just drove all the way from the North Houston Costco because they were out of the LED candles you have advertised, and they sent me here because you have them in inventory on the computer system.” (I’m not above innocent white lies to Costco employees fourteen minutes after closing.) “That’s the only thing I need to buy,” I continued, “could you let me in real quick, and I promise, that’s all I’m buying.”

Underpowered, they had to call for a supervisor’s approval. I repeated my story and he gladly let me in, showing me the way to the location of the candles in the huge warehouse. I was so glad they actually had them, because it was actually three days ago that I was at the North Houston location when I learned that they had sold out. I was told that the Bunker Hill store had over one hundred of them. All right, so I fibbed twice.

Closed entrance door to a Costco (not my image).

A mocha freeze

I’d spent nearly two hours in IKEA and felt like I had walked half way across Houston to do so. I was hot, sweaty and tired and I looked up on the wall across from the register for which I was in line and saw an image. Like a most wondrous mirage to one trapped for days in the desert, was an icy mocha freeze. It was only $1.45. It looked so cold and frosty, with a hint of chocolate. I think I would have paid $5 for it! It was just what I needed to cool me down on this first day of autumn, also known as the 216th day of Texas summer. There was still a line, so they were still open. So sue me, I lied a third time and wound up buying more than just the candles, but it was one of the best iced mochas of all time.

On the drive home I was treated to a fantastic sunset, complete with silver lined clouds and orange hues. There was no traffic until I got to my exit, which made me smile that I was avoiding it by such a close margin. It was a successful shopping trip. I found some needed items for my home, got some exercise, sweat like I was in a sauna, was entertained by a dim-witted woman who thought she got 30% off because she bought two items instead of one, and talked my way into a super-sized box store after closing. I’m in a good mood right now. Just wait until I start putting together my Malm dresser! Anyone want to come lend a hand?