Who knew we needed to return to IKEA so soon? But the storage unit Spike chose last Monday is now assembled and installed at her workspace at the Canberra Glassworks.
It is working very well. So we returned for more today.
It was not exactly as Dante wrote (of course).
THROUGH me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
"All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Dante's Inferno
Canto III, 1 - 9
But it was lunchtime on a Saturday afternoon. At IKEA. Not a million miles different.
We had made our decision before leaving home. Lunch in the Swedish cafeteria. God bless our cotton socks. Plant based 'meatballs' with cream, peas and lingonberry jam for the artist. A plate of deep fried fish, prawns and chips for me ... because I am my mother's son. And Scottish.
It wasn't terrible. But what is it that they say?
Damned by faint praise.
After 'dining' we took the nine circles of Hell route, through the uni-directional, twists and turns of the show room. Every time we visit I delude myself into thinking we might just buy a fitted kitchen, and link it to the home mods approval in my NDIS plan (substituting a couple of height adjustable surfaces for a bench or two of the store-bought configuration). And then I'll cook at home. But it never happens.
Instead, we bought some bits and bobs in the container section (because ... you know ... you cannot leave wholly empty-handed). And a ten dollar wireless phone charger.
Then we finished what we came for. More storage for the artist.
We wandered through the caverns of the warehouse.
While Spike searched purposefully, I checked out the secondhand corner because -- when I visit IKEA -- I exhibit all the free will and self-determination of Pavlov's dogs. As usual, I bought nothing.
At least Pavlov fed his dogs a treat when he'd conditioned them with his ringing bell.
Me?
Not a sausage (plant based or otherwise).
Afterwards, Spike loaded up the Chrysler once again. We dropped off the flat-packed gear at the Glassworks. Then I drove us home.
This much is true.
Not every day can life be like an epic poem. In fact, I seldom feel this way:
Arms and the man I sing, who, forced by fate
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expelled and exiled, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore;
Virgil's Aeneid
Book I, 1 - 4