Swindled by the Swedes

Last Friday, Brian and I ventured out to IKEA to buy some bedding. If you've never been to IKEA before, allow me to describe the store to you a bit. (If you have been to IKEA -- any IKEA, because they're all identical -- you can skip down to the next paragraph.) IKEA is a Swedish home furnishing super store. They specialize in "flat pack" furniture and have a very distinctive appearance. In addition to furniture, they also sell bedding, textiles, cookware, and just about anything else you would need for your home. And all at pretty reasonable prices. A lot of the store is laid out with different "rooms" -- living room, bedroom, kitchen, etc. -- where everything you might want for that type of room is set up like it would be in your home. You're guided through the store by arrows that lead you through a winding path through the entire upstairs -- living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, kid's room, bathroom (for your home, not public), and restaurant (public, not for your home) -- then back downstairs for rugs, bedding, kitchen and dining stuff (plates, cookware, etc), lighting, and pet stuff before you get to the warehouse section where you can pick up the flat pack furniture you picked out upstairs. It really is quite an ordeal to go through everything. Now that you have an idea of what IKEA is like, let's join the folks who skipped on ahead.

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Ah, there you are. Now we can continue.

So, as I was saying earlier, Brian and I ventured out to IKEA to buy some bedding. This was our first trip to IKEA in a long, long time, so we didn't know that the stuff we were interested in was downstairs. So we started on the long and winding path through all of the furniture upstairs. By the time we got through all of the furniture and were ready to go downstairs, we were a little hungry. Lo and behold, but what is located right next to the stairway -- the IKEA restaurant! So we decided to stop for a bite. And what else do you get when you're at a Swedish furniture store, but Swedish meatballs. We each got a plate with 10 Swedish meatballs and french fries, plus three bottles of water and went to pay. And guess how much it cost? 5 euros! That's right, folks, 5 euros. For two plates of food and three bottles of water. I was stunned. I knew the furniture was a good deal, but I didn't know the meatballs would be such a good deal as well.

Brian and I were so pleased with the deal we got on the meatballs, we decided to go to IKEA again yesterday and eat lunch (as well as buy some things for the kitchen). We worked up an appetite walking through the maze of furniture to reach the restaurant. We got our meatballs and water and headed to the cashier with 4 euros in hand. (Only two bottles of water this time.) The cashier rings it up and asks for 9.90 euro. The nerve of that woman! What happened to my 1 euro meatballs? The best explanation I came up with is that there was a special last Friday.

Even though they cost more than a euro, the meatballs were still pretty tasty. Here's a picture of the half-eaten meal. (The purple stuff is black current jam, I think.)



P.S. Just kidding about all of that "not able to get on the internet" in the last post. Looks like I got you worried for nothing.