This was going to be a challenge. So, picture me, if you will, pushing around an Ikea shopping cart stacked up like a builder\u2019s skip. This thing is about five feet high and it feels just like that game on Crackerjack \u2013 every time something fell off the trolley, I honestly thought Stu Francis was suddenly going to appear and hand me a cabbage \u2013\u00a0three cabbages and I\u2019m out!<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the big stuff could be delivered, but that turned out to be another nightmare, altogether. Saturday was the official move in date and I was expecting delivery between 2pm and 6pm. So I stayed in, sat on the floor, and watched TV \u2013 thankfully the Time Warner cable box had been set up. It turns out this building is situated in a Dead Zone between two transmitters and cellphone reception is pretty poor. At 5:30pm I begin to wonder where this damned delivery is, so I call the Ikea helpline. To cut a long, excruciating story short, 20 minutes of being on hold was followed by a further 15 minutes of being on hold upon which I learn it has been marked down as a Failed Delivery, which was followed by a total loss of temper, naturally. This in turn was followed by a frenzied trip down the freeway to Ikea itself, which was followed Customer Services being on the receiving end of a Godzilla-like rampage.<\/p>\n
A new time is set for the following day, Sunday, between 9am and 1pm, plus a partial refund for the first Fucking Disaster<\/span> Failed Delivery. It\u2019s about half past nine in the evening now, so I drive home, stop off at Whole Foods to pick up a pizza and nice bottle of wine, exactly what\u2019s needed before settling down on the cold, hard wooden floor to watch a movie and then sleep, since the sofa and the bed were part of that consignment. But the final smack in the face this particular day was that the wine was corked, honked of vinegar and would have to be returned the next day.<\/p>\n The agony of backache awoke me on Sunday morning, but this was no time to let crippling pain get in the way. At 9 o\u2019clock precisely I called Ikea and the delivery company, since I now had their number, and told the person on the other end that it was imperative the driver ring the buzzer for the apartment, since he had not done so the previous day. And just to make sure the message was absolutely, positively understood, I phoned back every 30 minutes until the delivery actually arrived.<\/p>\n However, I chose not<\/em> to inform the delivery company that the elevator in the building had broken down that very morning and every stick of furniture was going to have to be carried up three flights of stairs. The hits just kept on coming.<\/p>\n Finally, just to be doubly sure the delivery man knew where I was, in case somehow the instruction \u201cring buzzer\u201d got confused with the words \u201cdrive away\u201d I sat outside the building, on a bench, in the beautiful early morning Southern Californian sunshine and read my book: Fletch<\/em> by Gregory McDonald.<\/p>\n He arrives at about a quarter to one, naturally, and it appears he\u2019s on his own.<\/p>\n \u201cThe lift\u2019s broken,\u201d I say. He insists that he can manage and despite the fact that he looks like a Mexican Hercules-equivalent, there\u2019s simply no way he could\u2019ve carried the bed parts and the mattress up there on his own. A few hours later everything is upstairs and more or less successfully assembled. I\u2019ve given him a cold beer and we look proudly at the fruits of our labor. He packs up his tool bag and shakes my hand. I know exactly what\u2019s coming\u2026but my back still aches and that\u2019s because I had to sleep on a cold, wooden floor and that\u2019s<\/em> because you didn\u2019t ring the buzzer yesterday before you chalked up a Failed Delivery. So, no. No tip for you.<\/p>\n He leaves, I get myself a beer and sit down on the sofa for the very first time. The SuperBowl has already started and I shut my eyes and breathe a sigh of relief, I have everything I need. At which point the picture on the TV suddenly freezes and then goes black. Turns out Time Warner is having transmission problems with the Fox feed.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cStairs..?\u201d He asks.
\nI nod.
\n\u201cTop floor..?\u201d
\nI nod.<\/p>\n![\"Time](\"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Fox-black-out.jpg\")
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