Tab A into slot B

We drove home today from Ashfield to Gilmore via the IKEA store in Tempe.  Contrary to my worst fears and much to my surprise - given it's a Saturday after the sales have started - the vast warehouse was much quieter than I expected.  The canteen (no other word does justice to the awful utilitarian atmosphere of the eating place) was the busiest spot on the site.  Spike managed to capture my enthusiasm for the dining experience in her photo below.  

This thought may be unfair but it's the thought that came to me as we sat at the formica-topped retro table (it seems the 1960s have been back in vogue for quite a while).   I read the notice above the conveyor belt carrying off the trays bearing the remnants of the hopeful purchases of hundreds of less than wholly-satisfied diners which said something to the effect that all waste organic matter would be recycled to minimise the use of landfill.  I couldn't stop myself thinking of one of the deeply secret horrors revealed to Sonmi-451 in The Orison of Sonmi-451, the fifth of the nested tales in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas; cannibalistic re-processing of clones.  But I cannot tell a lie.  As grim as the experience may have been I finished off most of my 'fisherman's basket' with a side of garlic bread, so let he who hath not sinned cast the first stone.

The fish ladder on the River Tummel

As for the shopping, well ... it's IKEA.  Every fibre of my being revolts against the ways in which we're forced to follow the route layed out by the social engineers who have created the brand and all that comes with it.  I instinctively turn left when the arrow on the floor points right.  Whenever I feel my irrational, juvenile need to resist I turn round, retrace my track to return for a supposedly essential second view of a bookcase, sofa or table.  It's a bit like being a salmon, I imagine,  heading upstream, making your way home to primeval spawning pools via the fish ladder at Pitlochry Dam.  Sort of.  But only in my head.  Other shoppers simply regard me as troublesome - going the wrong way.

The point of IKEA, however, is to purchase furniture, fittings and home accessories that you think you need - in flat packs, of course, so you can get in touch with your inner carpenter back home.  I am no less guilty than all the other miserable sinners swimming against the stream in the great Nordic warehouse.  But I leave the assembly tasks to Spike, who has both the patience and the finger-function required.  We came, we viewed, we purchased: trestles, a stool, a reading lamp, crockery (so our Dutch visitors on Monday could all eat from plates, which seems the least we could do), cutlery, cheap wine glasses.  The bookcases we need are too large to fit in the car and the kitchen cabinet we fancied is out of stock.  

Galahad, Bors & Percival achieve the Grail,.  Morris & Co., Birmingham Museum

The Grail Quest it was not but we failed in a not entirely dissimilar way.  We shall keep on searching for the out of stock cabinet.  

One day - perhaps next October when the Canberra IKEA store opens - we may triumph.  Isn't that the enduring appeal of Romance - the journey, the trials and tribulations on the road, the momentary glimpse of the cherished artefact?  No.  I don't think so either.  I am not Sir Galahad nor was meant to be (to paraphrase Eliot) and we need that kitchen cabinet to house all the damn plates and bowls we bought.  IKEA the drug.  You always need just one more hit.