but where are your Skarsgards?

This past weekend was pretty awesome: I got to relieve my stress by ripping sheets of ugly wallpaper off the walls of Jane's new house, I saw some funny plays at North, the Colts won their game over the Ravens, I finished "A Presumption of Death" and am now "learning the ropes" (hahahhaaha) of "The Nine Tailors" AND I went to Places Unknown, namely: Kane County. I have heard tell of mysterious places like "Huntley" and "Elgin" and "West Dundee" in stories, but on Monday, I got to go to there. Fun times abounded. No seriously, they did - there are outlet stores up there, people, and their sales tax is only - wait for it - 7%!!!!!!! That's SEVEN PERCENT, as opposed to over 10% like it is here in good ol' Cook Co.

And then, even more fun times - we went to IKEA. I loves me some IKEA. Beth said she wanted a house - I don't want a house, per se, I just want to decorate a house with all kinds of crazily named Swedish furniture. Anyway. We paused in the act of commiting commerce to have a snack - Swedish meatballs (naturally)and several desserts. I have to say it was the oddest snack I recall having in a while. Meatballs AND chocolate cake, washed down with some milk. Mmmmm. We went back to our browsing. Heidi ended up getting a little loveseat with a pull out bed, and here the fun begins. I am leaving it to your very able imaginations to picture me, Beth and Heidi trying to cram this thing into the back of Heidi's CRV. I'll wait while you picture this. Go on. In the words of Mr. Addams "Esss FON!" And funny. Something out of a three stooges show, really. You see, we'd thought it would come in pieces. To assemble, like. But it DIDN'T. It was the couch frame and one tiny but heavy box of whatnot. So although Heidi had measured the room to make sure the couch would fit, we had not taken into account needing to cram it into the back of the car.

And we're back. I am a weakling and so could not contribute much to the lifting, although I DID manage to contribute BRAINPOWER and ENCOURAGEMENT. We'd almost gotten the thing stuffed into the car - but it wouldn't fit. We could not close the rear door. What to do? Renting a truck seemed to be our only option but then I said something about taking off the cardboard to give us a little more room - and then we were off again, ripping the cardboard off of the couch and renewing the pushing, lifting and cramming. And this time - it fit! You know what didn't fit though? All three of us. There was a little more cramming as Beth got into the back. This doesn't sound as incredibly hilarious as it was at the time, but let me tell you. It was probably the most awesome car ride I've ever had. Seriously.

Heidi needs to order some more furniture, but next time I think she will get it delivered. Also, we looked high and low for their selection of Skarsgards (particularly the "Alexander" model) but didn't find any of them anywhere. What's up with that, IKEA? Although, honestly, we would not have been able to fit him into the car...