Everybody loves IKEA, well not me - I cannot stand the place. You may enter only to buy a lamp, but you leave with a complete new inventory for the whole house as you exit, IKEA is a maze to get lost in, and time-consuming as no other furniture store.
The first time I went to IKEA was a three hour drive from my house. I was only going to have a look around, because everyone said that IKEA was so awesome, and I too wanted to feel this awesome experience that everyone else was so hyped up about.
So I park my car on the big parking-lot, and I enter into what I think is going to be something like a one, maybe two hour shopping experience - FACEPALM - I´m telling you - IKEA is not designed by normal people, it must be designed by the people who build inventory for LAB-RATS, because that is exactly how I felt in there - like a LAB-RAT!
So I´m walking there, looking at lamps - I find one and then I want to go to the cash-register and pay for it and get home, but where is the exit?
The whole place is designed to take you from room to room like it is a freaking movie-set with different installations and scenes created for soap-operas. I noticed a nice carpet, so I picked up one of those as well.
By the time I had made it half way through IKEA, I was dragging around two shopping-carts - then I noticed another lamp that I liked more then the first one, so I grabbed the new one and went back to place the first one where I had found it - but guess what - that is when the problem starts.
I swear - they have designed that place to make it impossible to go back and change things, instead you are sent around in a different direction in the maze that is IKEA only to end up where you are and missing where you supposed to go.
So finally I gave up, and just placed the first lamp in some IKEA-shelf full of rubber-ducks and went for the exit - following the blue arrows which in this case does not lead to the exit at all, but rather to the IKEA Restaurant which is placed in the middle of the entire complex - I was trapped!!
So I sat down at a table and figured I could use a bite to eat. After all, I had spent over FIVE HOURS in this torture-chamber, so I had developed an appetite. I went and ordered Swedish Meatballs - they where good, and made me happy as the blood-sugar and whatever other happy-drugs they had put into those Meatballs - I SWEAR - THEY DRUGGED ME, because as I left for the exit again - I was so happy, that I bought a Sofa, a Bed and a freaking Book-Shelf.
Finally after SEVEN HOURS I made it to the checkout ... OMG - FINALLY - THE CHECKOUT!!
I take out my stack of cards to pay for this mountain of IKEA-goods, and that is when they inform me that the Bank-Terminal system is down, so at the moment - they cannot accept cards, only Cash - which was a lot more Cash then I would ever carry around in Cash - so I had to head for an ATM-Machine out in the City they said.
It had already become night-time, it was dark outside and IKEA was about to close - I looked at the mountain of stuff I did not need, I looked at the time I had consumed - cursing myself for being so stupid to even go to IKEA in the first place, so I left for the ATM-Machine which they said was a minute away but changed my mind and turned the car around heading home.
I´m sure there are other places that can sell me a lamp.