I lost my shit at Ikea

I'll admit it. Sometime I lose my shit. And when I do it's usually because I am unable to communicate my true feeling or that I feel like things are moving too quickly. However there is one place that I always lose my shit and that is Ikea. We went there yesterday to go and buy a new storage system for Ace's room. We've been living with this clear bin solution for a year now and it just sucks. Ace pops the bins open and dumps them out. Everything is mixed together and unmanageable. Not to say that kids will be neat with the right system but this one just sucks. Also in the current set up all the toys are visible through the plastic so nothing is ever out of sight, out of mind. So this new system Jodi devised was waiting for us in the maze-like halls of Ikea and we headed out. Not that I wasn't dragging my heels on the whole trip. Going to Ikea means several things for me. It means I have to leave the house. So I get tense about the whole IBS thing. Then it means I have to spend money, which I hate to do. Then it means I have to build shit. Another thing I am not crazy about. And in general it means I have to go to Ikea and witness all the myriad choices I could have in my house if i had a normal house and not a tiny New York apartment. So going there means anxiety, feeling bad about myself and money loss. Really a great combo. Also half the time I go there the thing I want is not available or discontinued. And to top it all off Ikea's are always, and I mean ALWAYS ALWAYS fucking crowded to the Nth degree. So on top of everything I am sort of freaked out by being surrounded by the teeming unwashed masses looking for plain furniture which can be disconcerting to someone of my fragile mindset.

So we went to the Hicksville, NY Ikea yesterday and as I have set up it was a disaster. Ace was moaning the entire time we were going there that he wanted togo home and that he was hungry and tired and anything else he could whine about it. I was pissed because on Friday Jodi found out that her debit card was compromised but the geniuses at Citibank seem to have killed our citibank upromise credit cards instead of the debit cards. I found out mine was cancelled on the way to ikea when we stopped for gas. Ikea was a madhouse. The Ikea by Hicksville is in a larger mall so it had a food court that we stopped at. The food court was a birth control ad if I ever saw one. Lord of the White Trash Flies. Dead-eyed mothers staring into the middle distance as their kids climb all over the fucking place. Jodi had to yet at the same kid like 4 time to get the fuck off the stupid jeep ride that she'd paid $1 for ace to ride. The big gutted, fried stringy hair mom was totally zoned out about 100 feet away. Only after the 4th telling off did she come to get her ADD addled spawn. After filling up we were off to Ikea proper and the nightmare within. I lost my cool about 10 minutes in when were looking at solutions that obviously couldn't possibly work in Ace's room. When we finally did get to the stuff that Jodi wanted to look at I was really over the top angry about the whole ordeal. Admittedly I was overreacting but such is my dislike of Ikea. By the time I calmed down we had created a full on scene at Ikea of nicely horrifying proportions. I won't go into the details but it sucked. Eventually we picked out all kinds of junk and doodads for the house and headed to the self serve section of furniture. When we got here I took one look at the main item that we wanted and immediately knew it would never in a million years fit in our car. It was hugely long. So of course I got mad that we'd wasted the trip anyway. The 2nd item was a gamble on the size but we decided we had to try. It barely fit with Jodi's seat all the way forward. The entire way home Jodi was complaining about her knees being crushed by every bump in the road. It was a DELIGHTFUL TRIP!

Now what I really can't wait for is the one to open in Red Hook. We drove by it a few weekends ago and it's MASSIVE. It is going to cause some huge headaches for that neighborhood. Especially traffic wise. I suppose it will probably add a lot of jobs to that area but then you'll probably have people who wash out from Fairway working at Ikea and vice-a-versa. Hooray low wage workers!

After that nightmare my mom came over to watch Ace. Ace was glad to be rid of us. We are no fun. Jodi and I went to eat at Chili Cafe which is a Thia place. The name always makes me think Mexican chili. The food is decent. Everytime I eat there the first few bites are bland and I am disappointed but then slowly the flavor creeps in and the next thing I know all my food is gone. Afterwards we went and grabbed a glass of wine at the new wine bar on Henry street. It was nice. I am trying to expand my wine world beyond Night Train. I have the wine for dummies book, even. I've learned more about wine in the last year than in the 37 before it and I still don't know dick about it. Kind of how I learned to love apples last year. Jodi and I shared a Cabernet and Zinfandel. I refuse to call Cabernet "Cab". Nicknames are for friends. Wine... you ain't there yet. Not like my pal "Suds." Yeah, me and "Brewski," we're still tight. I feel like a frost mug right about now... because I am an alcoholic!

In more dire news I started playing Call of Duty 4 multiplayer a few days ago. VERY addictive. I am not as good as I would like to be at it. I consider myself a better than average Halo 2-3 player but so far at CoD I am less than average. Not sure why yet. It's your standard shooter but the fact that you can power up your abilities as you get better if kind of screwed up because newer players just get leveled by their ass kicker shooting or whatever. Regardless, its fun. I did report some dumbass jerks because they were being insanely racist and saying White Power over and over again and saying gay and racial slurs. It was pretty stupid. I hope that sort of reporting actually works... Actually a guy I play with who used to go by the name "44lb Ballz" was informed by xBox Live that his name was offensive and he needed to change it. Thats like the 3rd guy I've seen that happen to know. One other guys name was "a crippled jew" which he thought was okay because he is jewish M$FT didn't agree.

Final note: It looks like Team Fernandez will be coming to a close this March. The show it's part of is finishing it's run and shutting down. So if you like Team Fernandez come get your fill!