IKEA MADNESS: Comfort Food and… Comforters

So, in the mail this past week arrived a brochure from IKEA promising comforters, Weight 3, any size… for $14.99, starting this morning at 10am.

$14.99!

Now, people who know me know that we’re not into possessions; we are the world’s worst consumers. When President Obama has to have an economy conference, we are not included in the equation. We just don’t buy stuff; in fact, we give away stuff, and I won’t be happy until the house is empty of things we never use anymore.

But a $14.99 comforter… everyone needs one of these, so we decided to buy two– only two to a customer, please!– and divide them between the two beds. But wait! Knowing that my sister Lois sniffs out bargains like bloodhounds sniff out dead bodies, I called her and told her about this once-in-a-lifetime offer, and of course she wanted one. “And couldja look for two shams too while you’re at it?” Certainly! So now we were up to THREE comforters, and decided to make it an even four– only two to a customer, please, so why not?

The Orlando IKEA opens at 10, and we decided that we’d better get there in case there was a huge rush. HA! A huge rush for comforters in Florida, the Sunshine State? But, you never know, so we checked the catalog to make sure the store really DID open at 10, and then discovered that they let the breakfast crowd in at 9:30. My God, this could turn out to practically be a holiday of international proportions!!

I was awakened from a dream I was having (involving two parish priests and an outdoor Mass, with one of them asking if I was going to be attending, and ended with me lying and answering “Yes”) and given coffee, and, before I knew it, was in the car on the interstate heading to the Millennia Mall exit. We giddily planned on being there early, and so we parked and discovered that we were actually first in line when we arrived at 9:10. First! That’s never happened, and you could see the envy in the eyes of the other shoppers who arrived very soon after we did as they lined up Swedishly behind us. We wondered: could these people suddenly streaming out of their cars ALL be wanting $14.99 comforters? They came as if to Lourdes, afoot or with walkers, on crutches, in wheelchairs… and, just in case you’re wondering, the less ambulatory did not automatically move to the head of the line, which was us: this wasn’t Disney, after all– this was, essentially, Sweden, where everyone is equal. Just ask the King and Queen!

At one point I remarked that it seemed like we were all waiting anxiously in line to see the premiere of the newest Joan Crawford movie.

Because we have lived here for decades, we did meet someone we knew– a tall, nice-looking guy named Patrick who is always so bashfully polite and friendly that we let him stand with us. Guess what he was going to buy? Comforters! And it was a good thing that we met him– Patrick told us that to get FREE COFFEE and be eligible for the incredible discount on comforters, we would have to be Ikea Family members. If not, we could quickly register at a kiosk inside the store. WHAT?!?! We weren’t IKEA Family members!! How did we do that?! And would that result in a delay?! Suppose somebody got ahead of us!!

At 9:30 sharp (this WAS Sweden, after all) the doors opened and we streamed in politely to have breakfast, the two of us stopping to ask the greeter where the comforters were– and everyone stopped in place behind us!!  I almost started singing Kumbaya! The answer was given– they’d be located in the warehouse area– and then patrick deftly pointed out two kiosks to us so that we could register as IKEA Family members. Which we did, though Kirk had a spot of trouble with his terminal, lending me no end of angst, sighs and sweat. The problem was that he had to type in his birth year as 1951, not 51 (sorry, Kirk) but I corrected it and we were on our way. We weren’t first in line anymore, but we queued up in the food area and had a nice discussion with two women (yes, they were there to buy comforters), one of whom ran her hand along my sweater, leading to a detailed discussion about all the different kinds of wool there were in the world.

We wolfed breakfast, and then some sort of secret signal went off, and we paying  breakfasters advanced to the rope at about 9:50 so that we could be let into the store proper. And that’s when we noticed a giant crowd of people waiting beyond the rope who were there for the 10am opening, but who had to patiently wait while we Paying Breakfasters (except for the coffee) were herded past them.

It was incredible– an IKEA staffer led the hundreds of us to a staircase that reached down to the main floor, and there we were given a speech. He basically told us that:

*     There were enough comforters for everyone.

*     There would be no pushing, shoving or running.

*     We would advance toe the area where the comforters were offered, and we would be handed the size we needed by staffers. There would be no diving into boxes. No jumping ahead. Non issues.

*     Finally, even though the ad said TWO to a customer, we could each buy up to FOUR. Not twenty-five… FOUR. Still, there was mass salivation at that point, which (I think) was a great way of making the crowd feel even MORE disposed toward buying even MORE.

As we waited those final minutes before 10am, we talked with the people around us. We learned from our staffer that comforter COVERS were going to be offered for sale on Monday, and a woman next to us said “great!,” to which I replied “awww, whatta you need covers for?” And she replied: “Men leave stains.” Laughter and commiseration followed, and then I told the story of how my grandmother was waiting outside Gimbel’s sometime in the 1940s for a huge sale, and the crush of women dressed in their winter coats and hats eventually surged too far forward, breaking the store windows. But they let the women in anyway because, after all, a sale is a sale.  (Eugene, was your mother there for that? Because every Brooklyn woman I know was there for that.)

10am finally ticked, and we were led like hungry sheep to the warehouse area; you could feel the crowd hurrying up as we got closer. Even though we had been instructed to WALK, the people in front were definitely breaking into a trot, causing the rest of us to do so as well. (The Brazilians, I am happy to say, were easily outflanked by the Americans among us who chose to use their splayed elbows as shields.)

And you know? IKEA was true to its word– there were comforters galore, and we all got our allotment. We couldn’t find and shams– I even called Lois from my Jitterbug, in public, which I never do because that phone is big and red and looks like a shoe horn stuck to my face– but we did find a bath mat for the guest bath because the one in there looks like a leaf of tissue paper on the floor.

They must have sold sixty-five thousand comforters this morning, all of us high on breakfast carbs. There was a sort of World’s Fair pleasantry going on, what with people talking and laughing and feeling one another’s sweaters. We were Americans, lined up politely, spending money, improving the economy, and making the President happy. And it was good. And then loaded our comforters and bath mat into the trunk and, drunk with accomplishment, we headed to our next scintillating destination– something we’d been planning for weeks: to Sears Fashion Square for vacuum bags.

(Incidentally, we met at a party on February 16, 1985– 28 years ago exactly, and we call it Meeting Day– and so this is exactly how to celebrate such an auspicious occasion: comforters, bath mats and vacuum bags. I rest my case.)