Did I say Sweden? I meant Ikea.
It is a commonly held misconception that the M6 is a major transport artery running from Rugby to Carlise via Birmingham and Manchester. It is, in actual fact, the queue for Ikea at Wednesbury. Try using the M6 at the weekend anywhere near Wednesbury and you'll encounter the longest and narrowest car park ever constructed in Britain. If you manage to get off the 'motorway' and into the official Ikea car park you can expect to drive around the perimeter ( I say 'drive', movement is a rare, blessed event) stalking for a place to turn the engine off. Although this is unlikely as nobody is about to leave because it's an hour before the store opens.
Proceed to the store entrance where helpful staff are teaching the rabble Swedish folk songs while they sway around a burning MDF bedside table toasting marshmallows. It's mostly the women who are joining in as this makes the time between then and the moment they can get their hands on the authentik Svedish furnituren shorter. The husbands, boyfriends, sons and any other heterosexual male unfortunate enough to be there, have turned into zombies hoping to go back to the car to have that lie in they were promised.
The moment comes when the doors are unlocked and an avalanche of biblical proportions occurs, flooding the entrance hall with furniture starved monsters, crushing the flaming bedside table to cinders. The men meanwhile, carried by this tidal wave, look to the left wishing they were under three feet tall so they can go in the ballpark. The race is on to get the sacred yellow satchel/basket and get around the store in the longest time possible looking at
everything.
Ikea must be the only store to have a route map instead of a floor plan. But it makes sense as there is a strict, but unspoken, traffic system inside, the main walk way: this is the widest part where people can walk and therefore is the busiest and slowest way of getting around, the slowest part being in the middle speeding up alittle further towards the edge (fastest here as no-one stands here as being stationary here results in painful collisions). The furniture maze: this section is located off the main walk way as storing furniture in the main walkway would be stupid. This place has many many narrow paths meaning this area is easily congested, but don't worry you will be able to look at the fruits of Swedish furniture engineering. The maze however can offer shoutcuts across the store as some areas of the maze are less popular than others, the determined customer can make a quick advance by using these areas. Around the course there are pencil stations which allow the men to play mini-games collecting as many pencils as possible, though only one pencil per station, and/or making bandanas out of the paper measuring tapes.
The first area is called 'Living room'. A more appropriate classification would be 'Living confinement' as there isn't room to swing a fluffy cushion DØG. Every seat, rug, sofa, bookshelf, beanbag is sat upon, rendering the maze a perfect model of the car park outside. Around the course there are examples of rooms from the perfect, money-isn't-a-problem house, including the bedrooms which the men are trying to get their lie-ins on, and the kitchen areas full of tools which will mash, blend, clone or purée fruit you didn't know existed. Eventually you will make it to the end of the first leg of the course, the next step being downstairs to the bulk sales, decorations and the furniture you actually buy.
The lower floor has a more industrial feel to it, the upper floor has hypnotised you into the glory of Ikea and thus no more expense is required in tarting up the place. Bulk sales mainly consist of crates upon crates of small white candles, and entire walls of mugs. Decorations is an obstacle course, especially for the long haired gentleman, becareful of those light fittings, they are lower and more fiddley then they appear. If you are unfortunate enough to encounter such a light fitting, you might see men infront and behind laughing, don't worry: those behind are laughing because they think you are an idiot, but you can just turn around later and laugh at them as they go through the same experience, hence the men infront laughing. Women need not worry about such things, the light fittings are lifted up by specially genetically engineered Swedish gnomes who are superglued to the ceiling. The final leg of the Ikea experience is the 'Self Serve Furniture'.
Self Serve Furniture sounds so much like a buffet, but is decidedly lacking. This is where the glorious sets seen on the upper floor are put through a process created by the greatest Swedish engineers and mathematicians of the moment, the end product is called the Flat-Pack.
The Flat-Pack is the mathematical goal of turning a three dimensional object into a two dimensional object while keeping it in existence the entire time, simulateously making the instructions turn from poetry to abstract art. The result is a super dense box which weighs upwards of a tonne, but cannot be found for several hours. This is partly due to the
Raiders of the Lost Ark style warehouse in which it is kept.
Once the items have been found proceed to the checkout which lends much of its design to cattle farms. This is finally where the men get to have their lie ins as queue time is approximately three weeks, and by this time the two dimensional containers are exceedingly comfortable. As soon as the family fortune is handed over its finally to the exit which is guarded by two charity box weilding old men who are highly trained in the art of looking lowly, thus creating a bottle neck pushing escape back further and further.
Back in the outside world and enjoying the taste of air which hasn't been pre-breathed by the population base of Milton Keynes, the game now is to find the car. Which may or may not be under five other cars by now.
Keep spendin'
Nitey nite.
