With the Tesco Glider cleaned up and incorporated into our living room we began to focus on more important things… like having a baby. Gilliam was born shortly after acquiring The Chair and life calmed down and smoothed out. At least for a while… because in our excitement surrounding Gilliam’s arrival we forgot about something…
Remember the IKEA Chair? The one Costello and I picked up… the one that actually takes up the bulk of this saga… the one Serena didn’t end up liking… the one she replaced with the Tesco Chair… the one from IKEA that we intended to sell on Gumtree.com instead of lugging back to the store? Yeah… well… we never posted it on Gumtree… so as our departure from London grew near, it was still sitting, disassembled, in our hall closet. And with the horrible deal we actually got on the Tesco Chair, Serena, now, wanted to return the chair for store credit.
… So… yeah… I am sure you can see where this part of the story is going… it was time for me to brave IKEA once again. But I wouldn’t be stepping into the beast on my own… I would be accompanied by a merry band of heroes… although I’m still not sure if that was a good or a bad idea… okay, it was a bad idea… but I didn’t have any other choice.
You see, on my initial trip to IKEA I had Costello at my side. And I will tell you this, there is no way I could have gotten The Chair back to our flat on my own. The Chair’s frame and cushion were packed separately and although neither were particularly heavy, they were rather large and bulky. Lugging both packages on and off two buses and three trains by myself would have been an impossible feat... however, since Costello had already gone home and was not available for IKEA round two, I should have at least attempted the impossible feat before… before… well… before doing what we ended up doing.
Replacing Costello on this new journey to IKEA and making up my, before mentioned, “merry band of heroes” was none other than Serena, my lovely wife who wanted to do some shopping with the store credit, Grayson, who had just turned four years old, and Gilliam… who had just been born… and was riding in the same infant carrier stroller Costello brought with him all the way from the States… the very same stroller I talked about in The Chair, Parts 26 – 32.
Also… this part of the story has inspired the title of my autobiography: “How to Make Simple Tasks 100x More Difficult: The JohnPaul Schutz Story.”
So, if you are keeping count… although our overall man power had increased… so had the potential number of things needing to be carried all the way to IKEA.
Things started out smooth. Serena carried the cushion while pushing Gilliam in his stroller, I carried the frame box, and Grayson walked while holding onto my belt-loop. An operation that worked very well… until we entered the Baker Street Underground Station. At which point Serena realized it was too difficult to maneuver the stroller on and off escalators while also carrying the cushion… the two boxes were in fact too bulky for me to carry on my own… and Grayson was already starting to get tired and asking to be carried. Yeah… and we had only just entered out first of three Underground Stations.
For any of you who have traveled extensively on London public transit you’ll know that not all stations are wheelchair accessible. Which in-turn means they are not infant carrier stroller accessible either. Sure we were able to find the occasional elevator and/or escalator along the way… however in most cases, even in the bigger stations, the elevators and escalators didn’t take you directly to your needed platform… so there were always stairs to face. And on our route to IKEA, there were LOTS of stairs to face. And each time Serena and I would have to figure out the most economical way to traverse the stairs with two large boxes, Gilliam, his stroller, and Grayson.
And I’ll let you in on a secret. There was no economical way up and down all those stairs.
Periodically we ran into very kind hearted Londoners who stopped to offer a hand. Helping us on the stairs and making sure we were headed in the right direction. Other times we were on our own. And on those occasions, I would have to abandon the boxes while I helped Serena carry Gilliam’s stroller over the stairs. On this one trip to IKEA, although I was never very far away or out if view, I received two separate warnings from the police for leaving unattended baggage on train platforms. The first officer asked to see the contents of the box and the second officer actually wanted to confiscate them for incineration. However, that second officer changed his mind and fought off a smirk when I looked at him square in the eye and said, “I wish you would.”
All and all… it was a very trying and exhausting trip. Which is much to be expected when IKEA is one of your destinations.
Oddly enough. Once we exited our final Underground Station the rest of the trip was cake. Sure we were a little worse for wear… nerves pretty much shot… and we still had a bus ride ahead of us, but it wasn’t too bad. Serena got the boys on and situated while I loaded the boxes with minimal yelling from the bus driver. And when we disembarked we walked to the store in the exact same formation as we entered Baker Street Station. We had made it.
Sure… I still wished the officer had set The Chair ablaze two stations ago… but we still made it. Mission accomplished.
And hindsight being what it is… I wish I had thought of taping the frame and cushion boxes together. Sure it would have been even bulkier as a single unit. But I could have used some rope to fashion a makeshift backpack… which would have made the trip so much easier. Oh well. What really mattered is that we made it to IKEA with The Chair. And it only took us two hours to get there. Which was about the same amount of time it took IKEA to process our return/refund…
Remember the IKEA Chair? The one Costello and I picked up… the one that actually takes up the bulk of this saga… the one Serena didn’t end up liking… the one she replaced with the Tesco Chair… the one from IKEA that we intended to sell on Gumtree.com instead of lugging back to the store? Yeah… well… we never posted it on Gumtree… so as our departure from London grew near, it was still sitting, disassembled, in our hall closet. And with the horrible deal we actually got on the Tesco Chair, Serena, now, wanted to return the chair for store credit.
… So… yeah… I am sure you can see where this part of the story is going… it was time for me to brave IKEA once again. But I wouldn’t be stepping into the beast on my own… I would be accompanied by a merry band of heroes… although I’m still not sure if that was a good or a bad idea… okay, it was a bad idea… but I didn’t have any other choice.
You see, on my initial trip to IKEA I had Costello at my side. And I will tell you this, there is no way I could have gotten The Chair back to our flat on my own. The Chair’s frame and cushion were packed separately and although neither were particularly heavy, they were rather large and bulky. Lugging both packages on and off two buses and three trains by myself would have been an impossible feat... however, since Costello had already gone home and was not available for IKEA round two, I should have at least attempted the impossible feat before… before… well… before doing what we ended up doing.
Replacing Costello on this new journey to IKEA and making up my, before mentioned, “merry band of heroes” was none other than Serena, my lovely wife who wanted to do some shopping with the store credit, Grayson, who had just turned four years old, and Gilliam… who had just been born… and was riding in the same infant carrier stroller Costello brought with him all the way from the States… the very same stroller I talked about in The Chair, Parts 26 – 32.
Also… this part of the story has inspired the title of my autobiography: “How to Make Simple Tasks 100x More Difficult: The JohnPaul Schutz Story.”
So, if you are keeping count… although our overall man power had increased… so had the potential number of things needing to be carried all the way to IKEA.
Things started out smooth. Serena carried the cushion while pushing Gilliam in his stroller, I carried the frame box, and Grayson walked while holding onto my belt-loop. An operation that worked very well… until we entered the Baker Street Underground Station. At which point Serena realized it was too difficult to maneuver the stroller on and off escalators while also carrying the cushion… the two boxes were in fact too bulky for me to carry on my own… and Grayson was already starting to get tired and asking to be carried. Yeah… and we had only just entered out first of three Underground Stations.
For any of you who have traveled extensively on London public transit you’ll know that not all stations are wheelchair accessible. Which in-turn means they are not infant carrier stroller accessible either. Sure we were able to find the occasional elevator and/or escalator along the way… however in most cases, even in the bigger stations, the elevators and escalators didn’t take you directly to your needed platform… so there were always stairs to face. And on our route to IKEA, there were LOTS of stairs to face. And each time Serena and I would have to figure out the most economical way to traverse the stairs with two large boxes, Gilliam, his stroller, and Grayson.
And I’ll let you in on a secret. There was no economical way up and down all those stairs.
Periodically we ran into very kind hearted Londoners who stopped to offer a hand. Helping us on the stairs and making sure we were headed in the right direction. Other times we were on our own. And on those occasions, I would have to abandon the boxes while I helped Serena carry Gilliam’s stroller over the stairs. On this one trip to IKEA, although I was never very far away or out if view, I received two separate warnings from the police for leaving unattended baggage on train platforms. The first officer asked to see the contents of the box and the second officer actually wanted to confiscate them for incineration. However, that second officer changed his mind and fought off a smirk when I looked at him square in the eye and said, “I wish you would.”
All and all… it was a very trying and exhausting trip. Which is much to be expected when IKEA is one of your destinations.
Oddly enough. Once we exited our final Underground Station the rest of the trip was cake. Sure we were a little worse for wear… nerves pretty much shot… and we still had a bus ride ahead of us, but it wasn’t too bad. Serena got the boys on and situated while I loaded the boxes with minimal yelling from the bus driver. And when we disembarked we walked to the store in the exact same formation as we entered Baker Street Station. We had made it.
Sure… I still wished the officer had set The Chair ablaze two stations ago… but we still made it. Mission accomplished.
And hindsight being what it is… I wish I had thought of taping the frame and cushion boxes together. Sure it would have been even bulkier as a single unit. But I could have used some rope to fashion a makeshift backpack… which would have made the trip so much easier. Oh well. What really mattered is that we made it to IKEA with The Chair. And it only took us two hours to get there. Which was about the same amount of time it took IKEA to process our return/refund…
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