A Swedish Post

I still don't want to mention the bitter defeat in the Olympic final of ice hockey. The games are behind now, and Finland got silver. But no gold in these winter games. Strange, that.

I think I'm either growing old and absent-minded or I'm just unstructured and therefore tend to forget things. Last week we went to Ikea in Essen. Normally we visit the one in Dortmund, because it's closer but they didn't seem to have what we were after. So we drive to Essen and spend a whole afternoon going around the store, eating Swedish meatballs and finally ending in the warehouse, where you get to pick out the big furniture boxes yourself. We wonder if we are going to be able to fit all those shelves and cupboards in the car and I'm confident as always that they fit. So we pack two carriages full of cardboard packages and head for the cashier's. We unload the little stuff on the belt and I then concentrate on the two carriages, which are quite heavy and hard to control alone. Virpi stays and pays.
There was one small package that we needed to order and we'd get it from the warehouse. The staff would bring it and shout out our number. That was funny already, we had the hugest packages that we had to pack in the carriage ourselves and one tiny package wasn't available there, so we'll have to wait. I move the carriages one at a time closer to the benches where we'll wait. Virpi comes over and is worried about on of the carriages. I get that too near the bench and we sit down.
The man at the desk tells Virpi that they will call out the number once it arrives. After ten minutes we notice a small package is delivered to the man's table. Nothing happens. No numbers get called, not at least ours. Nobody collects the package. I'm sure it is ours. We wait. After about another ten minutes, the man suddenly notices the package and asks "who brought this here?" Still no other reaction. No number gets called. At this point, I decide to go and collect the package. I get closer and notice that it is our package, just like I thought. I tell the man that it's our package, he takes a look at my paper and I get it.
Now that we have everything, we move to packing the car. It isn't easy, the longest package is over two meters long. We turn both the right side backseat and frontseat down, but it's going to be a tough fit. I can hardly reach the handbreak now, because the package is so heavy and wide. Virpi sits at the backseat and we're off.
Carrying everything up (thank god we have a lift) is not too difficult. In the evening, I start to build the small cabinet. Halfway to building it I notice that some part is missing. We quickly realize that all the little bits and pieces are missing. THEY MUST STILL BE AT THE BELT! We paid for them but never collected them. The whole IKEA experience had been so coma-inducingly stressful.
Of course, we have to go back. Next day, we head back to Essen and find out that it is quite common to forget the little things. They have a special notepad (A4) half-way full already for this year! Every page fits probably 15 customers, there were probably twenty pages filled out already. That would make about 300 forgotten purchases, in two months! Every shopping day 6 people forget that they've bought something more. Anyway we got what we came for, and we made a complaint about a missing part, which I discovered only because I started to build another piece of furniture after I noticed I couldn't finish the small cabinet. I actually couldn't finish any of the furniture, but I tried. That wasn't all, however, we made another round around the shop to buy a shower curtain and a few other miscellaneous bits and pieces, which had slipped our minds the day before.
Those two days of IKEA were very effective. After that I had several days worth of building. Some blinds are still to be attached, but all cabinets and showcases are ready and showing. Even the missing pieces arrived today in the post. I really hope it takes a long time before I have to go back to IKEA...