Over the river and through the woods, to Ikea we go

This weekend went quite a bit differently than planned. Suddenly around noon Saturday, instead of attending the Preds fan party, I ended up on I-65 headed south, on my way to hook up with my sister K. and her husband J.T. Because they had decided to go visit Ikea.

Because this is a question that I've had to answer more than once today, Ikea is a chain store that's owned by an extremely wealthy Swedish man. They are known for their very cheap, very stylish furniture, but to call it a furniture store is not enough. It's a Swedish Target + Bed, Bath & Beyond on steroids (sorry, Rafe.) And there are only a limited number of them in the U.S. Before the past couple of months, the closest one was in Chicago. The one that me and K. had been before was near D.C. Now there are Ikeas in Atlanta and St. Louis. Road trip!

However, the expedition to Ikea-Atlanta became an adventure of its own before we even hit their city limits. That's because K. and J.T. are househunting for a place near K.'s new job in Huntsville, so they figured that cutting across Huntsville, driving down to Anniston and then hitting the interstate there would be a good shortcut. Maybe it is in theory, but we encountered a lot more of something I'd forgotten about - the Bad Alabama Driver.

If you're reading this and happen to be in or from Alabama, don't be offended. I'm sure that there are plenty of people in the state who are excellent drivers. I also know there are bad drivers everywhere - I've probably driven in at least half of the states in the U.S., and have spent signifigant amounts of time driving in LA, NYC and Chicago. But something about Bad Alabama Drivers make them a special breed. Never in one place have I been stuck behind more motorists who think the left lane is the slow lane. Never have I seen more guys in pickup trucks who refuse to let you pass, even if they're inclined to drive five miles below the speed limit. And never, ever have I seen more people who haven't figured out that nice lever to the left of the steering wheel is a turn signal, and that you should use it before making turns. Not to mention you should slow down at the same time.

After about four hours and a stop for Dramamine, we finally crossed over the state line and soon arrived at our destination, only to find that everyone in three states who said, "That new Ikea's going to be a madhouse when it opens, so I'm going to wait for a couple of weeks to go" decided to go THIS Saturday. And that's when the Ikea Experience began, from the moment we entered the elevator shaft from the parking garage to loading our purchases into the car almost four hours later. As someone I heard inside said, it felt like walking through a theme park. We got herded into the surging crowds, wafted with the scent of cinnamon buns from the Ikea restaurant (I still maintain that it was piped in artificially to induce an aromatherapy shopping experience), and emerged into the first of many galleries. And it's hard to know what was more fun - the "Gee, whiz - look what I can actually buy for $5/$9/$20!" factor, or the amusement of many shoppers gawking at the example galleries, where they showed you what all you could fit into a 400-sq. ft. apartment, or a 900-sq. ft. house. A lot of the people seemed to be able to comprehend living in 400 feet and not dying of claustrophobia. Living in a 500-sq. ft. apartment with three cats, I had a hard time groking the 1,500 sq. ft. space. To each their own.

Unfortunately, my 500-sq. ft. space also comes with big ol' bills, so I couldn't buy much during my Ikea experience (upcoming post - my future vain attempts at keeping my cats from climbing my new net canopy for my bed.) K. and J.T., however, were on a mission - for a table for their new HDTV (a good problem to have) and furniture for their preschooler. And that was the most fun of all - figuring out how nuts my niece would go for her new Swedish-designed desk, trying to design the perfect loft bed, and buying the cutest green plastic chair on Earth (it looked like something from "Bear in the Big Blue House", for all readers with kidlings.) After going into the warehouse to pick out our perfectly-packed-and-flattened purchases, we stood in line with 1/3 of North Georgia and somehow managed to fit it in J.T.'s van.

I had one more fun thing to do before leaving Atlanta - my sister had never been there before, so I had to give her a taste of Midtown traffic as we made our way to the RuSan's in Buckhead (which was not as good as the Nashville RuSan's, sadly.) We finally drove northward on the Atlanta Speedway (read: interstate system) in pouring rain, which is actually a big part of being in Atlanta. Good times.