Tina was kind enough to join me in an adventure to IKEA this weekend. The store lived up to all the hype I’ve heard about it. For those of us looking for cool and trendy housewares, IKEA is the place to go. If crowds aren’t your thing, you may not want to venture there on a weekend. We spent about 2 1/2 hours wandering around the store and another 45 minutes in a checkout line the likes I’ve never seen before.

It was crazy. It was fun. But I was a little let down when I went to purchase a sofa table, side table, and matching coffee table. The coffee table was out of stock. I came home a little upset that I wouldn’t have a matching set of tables for my renewed living room. I figured I’d just order the table from IKEA online. No dice, the specific table I wanted was only available from the stores. I did stumble upon a store availability checker for the table though. And for 10 hours I refreshed the page hoping magically my coffee table would somehow appear in the store today.

And to my luck it did. But that meant wadding through the sea of people at IKEA. After Saturday I knew the store like the back of my hand, unlike the rest of the gawkers. On Saturday I had also learned about the secret loading zone areas for people with armloads of goodies. So instead of taking the truck into truck-parking I did my best to navigate the spiderweb of the parking ramp. At one point a traffic officer asked me if I was going to IKEA or the Metallica concert. I smiled and told him IKEA. It was one of those odd moments where I realized that I was growing up, or becoming pathetic like Ed Norton in Fight Club.

I I surfed the IKEA wave, making my way expertly through the hordes of people to my missing coffee table. I now have a fully rennovated living room, with new color. I can now die knowing that if anything happens, at least I have the living room situation taken care of.