I went to IKEA on Monday. I hate going to IKEA. It's not the store itself I detest (although there is only so much pleasure one can derive from flat-pack furniture made out of heavily laminated chipboard with novelty Scandinavian names, which I swear are just fabricated at Head Office by making up a word with too many hard consonants and shoving some dots on it).
It's the journey there and back that makes me want to punch the whole of humanity in the face.
When you live in Brighton and you have to - one surely never truly wants to - go to IKEA, you have 2 choices of destination:
- Up the M23 until you hit Croyden (described as '
London - Up the M23 and round the M25 until you hit
Thurrock (as well as nearly every other car on the road).
Both journeys invariably turn me into a seething ball of coiled rage.
It's said that society is three square meals away from anarchy. If this is true then it would appear that no one in Croyden has eaten in over a week. It’s a place where every car becomes 'The Enemy', road markings are to be ignored at any cost, and traffic lights are just things that happen to other people.
Then there's the parking when you get there.
Whenever I go shopping I find immense joy in parking right at the back of busy car parks, where I always have a choice of spaces. Nothing could be better described as 'smug' than my face as I walk the relatively short distance from my car to the supermarket, as other drivers who got there before me are still swarming round the entrance desperately trying to park as close as physically possible to the fruit'n'veg aisle.
However, because IKEA is constantly so bloody busy, there is always the inevitable game of 'Hunt the Space' to be played, regardless of where you are in the car park. It's fun for all the family.
"THERE'S ONE, THERE!"
"that’s the bit where you park your trolley Ebs"
"ok..... THERE'S ONE, THERE'S SOMEONE LEAVING"
"No, that other car's waiting to get in"
"oh..... THERE'S ONE"
"that’s the trolley park again Ebs".......
So that's Croyden in a nutshell.
Should we head for Thurrock then and take the M25 instead?
The M25. A place where the tail-gater is to be found in his natural habitat, majestically leaping from car to car in an apparent desperate attempt to mate with them.
I used to think that I was being really clever by saying "I hate people who say they hate people for having just one flaw in their character" (I know, I'm a complete prick), and while I still stand by that rather wanky piece of pseudo-philosophy, you've got to work pretty bloody hard to get into my good books if you are partial to tailgating or use your phone while driving.
I shouldn't have to explain why tailgating makes me angry. Bottom line, if you do it all the time there's a chance you're going to kill someone one day. I'd very much not like it to be me thank you very much. The same thing applies to using a phone while driving.
In fact, the sight of a driver guilty of either of these Offences (and they are Offences, with a capital 'O') makes me want to abandon my own journey, follow them home, and put dog shit through their letterbox (which while also being an Offence with a capital 'O', would be Satisfying with a capital 'S').
However, despite making the 126 mile round trip up to IKEA (we settled on Thurrock in the end, as I just wasn't up for crawling through 'London's Garden' in the Bank Holiday traffic), we didn't buy anything!!
The reason we went in the first place was to pick up a set of shelves for Ebony’s bedroom, but I knew that once we were there Mrs W would no doubt want to ‘get her shop on’. I was all ready to dutifully shuffle round the aisles with my customary fixed grin and my boredom fully suppressed.
However, to her credit we headed straight for the shelves and, with a small pit-stop to service a leaking baby, then ploughed through to the warehouse at the end to claim our novelty named laminated chipboard prize.
The moment we saw it in all its flat-packed glory we both knew it would never fit in our car. There may have been some swearing.
Back on the road empty handed then. More tailgating, more phones and for some reason, lots of personalised number plates. I don’t get the thinking behind personal plates. If you want me to know that you like to waste money, why not just throw a handful of tenners out of your window every few miles?
Well, that's me done for this rather ranty post, but I guess I’d better mention a car before I sign off seeing as that’s the whole reason why this blog exists in the first place.
Let's see, I drove a Jaguar X-Type for the first time last Saturday. It was alright.
Let's see, I drove a Jaguar X-Type for the first time last Saturday. It was alright.
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