Burning down Ikea

Katie has completely outgrown her toddler bed, and for now she and Jonah have to share a bedroom so we've been on a mission to find bunk beds. We've gone through a dozen catalogues, looked in several stores and even checked a few sets of used bunks (none were all that sturdy), but we finally found exactly what we wanted at Ikea. Let me backtrack, Ikea has been advertising a $1 breakfast so we headed out to Ikea early Saturday morning (after dropping James at cadets) thinking we'd look at bunk beds, mattresses and have a bite to eat. It was already packed at 9:45am but we quickly found exactly what we were hoping for - good, sturdy wooden bunks that are fairly low. Katie was super excited when we told her we'd bring them home with us, so we headed over to the restaurant, stood in line forever, got our food and finally settled into a table to enjoy scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries and a croissant. I had my back to the cafeteria-style kitchen when C notices flames shooting from the deep fryer. At first we weren't alarmed, after all you see flames coming from grills at fast food restaurant all of the time, but then the employees start spraying the fire extinguisher... once... twice... three times... Then the announcement of a code 1 (or some such thing) in the restaurant "this is not a drill". C looks at me and says "we're going to get evacuated". Sure enough not a minute passes before the PA system is broadcasting an evacuation message. I grab Jonah and a croissant, Charles grabs Katie and out to the parking lot we go. C asks an employee if he thinks we'll be out long and he says not likely. So we sit in the van and watch the four firetrucks pull up.

...


We decide to go to Costco, pick up some groceries and come back to Ikea. Much wailing ensues as we leave without the bunk beds.

An hour and a half spent in Costco and we figure it's safe to head back to Ikea. Once we get there we're met at the entrance to the parking lot by an employee who tells us it'll be another hour before the store reopenes. Well Ikea is al the way across town from us so we wait. And wait. And wait. After an hour C asks another employee if it's going to be much longer and is told 2 MORE hours. *sigh* So we leave Ikea, again, without bunk beds. Many more tears.

Long story slightly shorter Ikea had reopened by the time C left to pick up James (4:30pm) and the bunk beds made it home. Took 3 and a half hours to assemble the buggers, and we only have 1 mattress right now but Princess is a very happy girl.