A Trip to IKEA

We have many places to shop up here, but we do not have any place like IKEA. I am a big fan of that store; it amazes me how the furniture and home goods are designed for limited incomes and space. After all, I am frugal (frugal=cheap), and my husband and I have gotten some pretty good deals in the things we need over the years, especially at their original Plymouth Meeting store. This time, we needed a new mattress.

We have purchased IKEA mattresses before; they are usually well suited for our body frames and the cost is affordable. The nearest IKEA is Elizabeth, NJ, so we planned a day trip on a weekday to avoid the crowds. I looked up the directions on their website, thinking they may have insight into a shorter/faster route. I really should know better! After a tour of the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ - following the directions as written - we arrived at the store in time for lunch. Of course, the weekend crowds had depleted the menu items available in the restaurant, so we had some of what was available. Swedish meatballs are always good, right?

Anyone who has purchased a mattress knows you have to do a lot of laying down, and try each type available. After choosing the mattress, we had to load it into the car. Did I mention we have a Toyota? It has flip down rear seats, but this was a queen-size mattress. It would have fit, too, since the mattress is sold rolled and shrink-wrapped - if the car did not have this area behind the seats that frames in the opening to the trunk - if that were not there, we would have simply slipped it into the car. A friendly IKEA employee offered to help, so there were three of us trying to get this inner-spring mattress into a Toyota trunk, yelling at the top of our lungs at each other. The yelling was because the Elizabeth IKEA is next to Newark airport and it was prime-time in jet landing land! At one point my husband pulled the poor employee off his feet (he was a little guy) when he did not hear that my husband planned to spin the mattress around. I was thinking by this time, 'if I see this on one of those hidden camera shows...'

Tying the mattress to the top of the car is not a good idea - we did that once years ago and drove around the Washington, DC Beltway with my husband holding the thing on when a truck sent an updraft and almost sent our mattress (and car) into the next state. We learned then, and several times again with other items, that there always has to be a better way than tying anything on top of the car.

We came home a more tried and true way, but of course now we hit the real rush hour for people coming home from work. So we are in heavy traffic almost all the way home with a mattress sticking out of the trunk of the car. When we reached home, we were so exhausted from the noise, traffic, general stress, that we went to bed like a school night. After all, the next day, we were expecting more snow!

By the way, we did not get snow - we got freezing rain and ice. Much worse for driving. However, I got up last night around 4 am to see the moon coming in our west-facing window and reflecting off the ice covered trees. Sparkling ice crystals and brilliant white snow - Hollywood could not have created a more beautiful scene.