So I flew up to Chicago on Friday morning--a week ago now, time's flying. I took an Uber to my son's new apartment. He'd driven to Chicago the night before, picked up his key first thing that morning, and, by the time I arrived mid-morning, had unpacked the entire contents of his car and organized an impressive amount of his belongings. If my superpower is packing, his is unpacking.
First we had lunch. Then we went searching for the city clerk's office, so that he could buy a sticker that would let him legally park on the city streets near his apartment. It's a complicated system but the woman who helped us was cheerful and friendly.
After that we went to IKEA. Now, until this spring I had never stepped foot into an IKEA store. I'd heard rumors that one could buy basically anything legal at IKEA, and that it was the go-to place for cheap set-up-an-apartment furnishings. My sister in Charlotte kindly took me to the IKEA near her house so that I could see for myself, and yes, it is true--you can buy damn near everything there. So that's what we planned to do.
My son's apartment, as measured by our pacing (he's used to pacing distances for golf, I'm used to it for show jumping, so we're good at it), is 380 square feet, all one room except for closet and bath. The longest uninterrupted wall is about 13 feet long. We knew he didn't need much and we were careful not to buy anything we weren't certain he'd need, but we got a bed, mattress, couch, coffee table, tiny tv stand, and a little bistro-type folding table and chairs, for when he wants to eat at a proper table. Also plates, forks, that sort of thing. We arranged to have all the furniture delivered the next morning. We carried all the small items up to his apartment and we went out to dinner pleased with ourselves, arguing over whether or not we'd have time for a Cubs game Sunday afternoon and what the odds were of winning the Hamilton ticket lottery.
Ha. That was very nice. In the morning we woke up, ate breakfast at the hotel, went to the apartment, couldn't find street parking anywhere because half the streets in the neighborhood were closed off for a street fair, parked in a highly expensive garage, attempted and failed to get TV set up, or internet, and unpacked the plates and put them away. Then we waited for the delivery truck.
And waited. At quarter to twelve they called to say they would be there at 12:18. And then they didn't come. We called them around one--shit, the guy said, the truck broke. He was sitting in the broken truck. It was his first week on the job and he didn't know what to do.
My son and I went to lunch. We were hungry. Afterward I tried to call the delivery guy for an update, and he didn't answer the phone. I called IKEA customer service. They were absolutely staggeringly unhelpful to a degree that still astounds me. My furniture, they said, was on a truck, and the truck was broken, and the earliest they could deliver my stuff was Monday.
Nope, I said. I'd be flying home and my son would be starting his job on Monday. This was early afternoon Saturday. We needed to get his apartment set up.
Suck it, they said.
I told them to cancel the order. They told me they didn't have the authorization to cancel the order, but if I wanted to wait on the phone they could get me to someone who would accept the cancellation, only the hold time was over 30 minutes.
I hung up and said some choice words--my son and I had a very creative vocabulary from this point in the weekend on--and we walked to Best Buy so I could cool off and my son could buy an internet router and feel he'd accomplished something. The Best Buy was very far away; I'd forgotten how my son measures walking distances. He walks everywhere. But it worked--by the time we were done with Best Buy, we were calm and had a plan.
We rented a U-Haul cargo van, and headed back to IKEA. One handy side effect of pulling a horse trailer with a big-ass dually pickup truck is that driving a cargo van in crazy city traffic is just not that difficult. We bought all the same stuff over again. We cancelled the delivery order--the in-person IKEA people were helpful, not obstructionists--heaved all the stuff into the cargo van, drove back through nightmare highway congestion (how people survive in cities I just don't know), then unloaded the van and carried all the stuff up to the apartment, which sounds so, so much easier than it actually was. The mattress was very nearly the end of me.
It was by this time 8:45 at night. The UHaul had been due back at 8. I drove it to the garage where my son's car was, he hit the UHaul address on my phone GPS so I could find the UHaul place, and then I drove off; he was going to retrieve the car and follow me.
Only. First, as I was a quarter-mile away from my destination, my phone died entirely. I'd forgotten my charger and we'd been using it as a GPS for hours. Second, it was the wrong UHaul place--a little storefront instead of a massive place for trucks and cargo vans.
I sat in the street with my hazards blinking. Eventually, sure enough, here came my son. His phone had enough battery that we could find the correct UHaul place, where they were entirely unfazed by the fact that I was bringing it back an hour past their closing time. Some guys were still working in the lot and they waved at me to just leave it where I pulled it in.
So. We were dying for supper. While I wasparking the UHaul my son ordered Chinese food online, to be delivered to his apartment. Genius. We drove back, and just across the street from his apartment building, like a miracle, was a very small open parking space. He attempted to park in it. I got out to help him. Turns out the spot was just a few inches too small--I was bent over, telling my son through the open car window that we'd have to find somewhere different--and I looked up, and suddenly the entire street was full of bicycles. Ridden by people who weren't wearing clothes.
It was Chicago's Naked Bike Parade, and we were trapped in it. We couldm't leave the car as it won't fit into the space. We couldn't pull out without mowing down a dozen cyclists. We had no option but to sit in the car while naked people of every variation cycled past us. For the next 25 minutes.
I could not possibly be making this up.
Eventually we found a parking place and our Chinese food was delivered, and we ate it and then put the IKEA bed together so my son would have a place to sleep. We finished all that around 12:30 at night.
The next day we put together all the rest of the furniture, cleaned everything up, hung pictures, and shopped for groceries and for things like shower curtains and waste baskets and beer. We didn't get to see the Cubs or Hamilton, but we finished with pizza at a nice neighbor joint, knowing that, against formidable odds, we'd done well.
First we had lunch. Then we went searching for the city clerk's office, so that he could buy a sticker that would let him legally park on the city streets near his apartment. It's a complicated system but the woman who helped us was cheerful and friendly.
After that we went to IKEA. Now, until this spring I had never stepped foot into an IKEA store. I'd heard rumors that one could buy basically anything legal at IKEA, and that it was the go-to place for cheap set-up-an-apartment furnishings. My sister in Charlotte kindly took me to the IKEA near her house so that I could see for myself, and yes, it is true--you can buy damn near everything there. So that's what we planned to do.
My son's apartment, as measured by our pacing (he's used to pacing distances for golf, I'm used to it for show jumping, so we're good at it), is 380 square feet, all one room except for closet and bath. The longest uninterrupted wall is about 13 feet long. We knew he didn't need much and we were careful not to buy anything we weren't certain he'd need, but we got a bed, mattress, couch, coffee table, tiny tv stand, and a little bistro-type folding table and chairs, for when he wants to eat at a proper table. Also plates, forks, that sort of thing. We arranged to have all the furniture delivered the next morning. We carried all the small items up to his apartment and we went out to dinner pleased with ourselves, arguing over whether or not we'd have time for a Cubs game Sunday afternoon and what the odds were of winning the Hamilton ticket lottery.
Ha. That was very nice. In the morning we woke up, ate breakfast at the hotel, went to the apartment, couldn't find street parking anywhere because half the streets in the neighborhood were closed off for a street fair, parked in a highly expensive garage, attempted and failed to get TV set up, or internet, and unpacked the plates and put them away. Then we waited for the delivery truck.
And waited. At quarter to twelve they called to say they would be there at 12:18. And then they didn't come. We called them around one--shit, the guy said, the truck broke. He was sitting in the broken truck. It was his first week on the job and he didn't know what to do.
My son and I went to lunch. We were hungry. Afterward I tried to call the delivery guy for an update, and he didn't answer the phone. I called IKEA customer service. They were absolutely staggeringly unhelpful to a degree that still astounds me. My furniture, they said, was on a truck, and the truck was broken, and the earliest they could deliver my stuff was Monday.
Nope, I said. I'd be flying home and my son would be starting his job on Monday. This was early afternoon Saturday. We needed to get his apartment set up.
Suck it, they said.
I told them to cancel the order. They told me they didn't have the authorization to cancel the order, but if I wanted to wait on the phone they could get me to someone who would accept the cancellation, only the hold time was over 30 minutes.
I hung up and said some choice words--my son and I had a very creative vocabulary from this point in the weekend on--and we walked to Best Buy so I could cool off and my son could buy an internet router and feel he'd accomplished something. The Best Buy was very far away; I'd forgotten how my son measures walking distances. He walks everywhere. But it worked--by the time we were done with Best Buy, we were calm and had a plan.
We rented a U-Haul cargo van, and headed back to IKEA. One handy side effect of pulling a horse trailer with a big-ass dually pickup truck is that driving a cargo van in crazy city traffic is just not that difficult. We bought all the same stuff over again. We cancelled the delivery order--the in-person IKEA people were helpful, not obstructionists--heaved all the stuff into the cargo van, drove back through nightmare highway congestion (how people survive in cities I just don't know), then unloaded the van and carried all the stuff up to the apartment, which sounds so, so much easier than it actually was. The mattress was very nearly the end of me.
It was by this time 8:45 at night. The UHaul had been due back at 8. I drove it to the garage where my son's car was, he hit the UHaul address on my phone GPS so I could find the UHaul place, and then I drove off; he was going to retrieve the car and follow me.
Only. First, as I was a quarter-mile away from my destination, my phone died entirely. I'd forgotten my charger and we'd been using it as a GPS for hours. Second, it was the wrong UHaul place--a little storefront instead of a massive place for trucks and cargo vans.
I sat in the street with my hazards blinking. Eventually, sure enough, here came my son. His phone had enough battery that we could find the correct UHaul place, where they were entirely unfazed by the fact that I was bringing it back an hour past their closing time. Some guys were still working in the lot and they waved at me to just leave it where I pulled it in.
So. We were dying for supper. While I wasparking the UHaul my son ordered Chinese food online, to be delivered to his apartment. Genius. We drove back, and just across the street from his apartment building, like a miracle, was a very small open parking space. He attempted to park in it. I got out to help him. Turns out the spot was just a few inches too small--I was bent over, telling my son through the open car window that we'd have to find somewhere different--and I looked up, and suddenly the entire street was full of bicycles. Ridden by people who weren't wearing clothes.
It was Chicago's Naked Bike Parade, and we were trapped in it. We couldm't leave the car as it won't fit into the space. We couldn't pull out without mowing down a dozen cyclists. We had no option but to sit in the car while naked people of every variation cycled past us. For the next 25 minutes.
I could not possibly be making this up.
Eventually we found a parking place and our Chinese food was delivered, and we ate it and then put the IKEA bed together so my son would have a place to sleep. We finished all that around 12:30 at night.
The next day we put together all the rest of the furniture, cleaned everything up, hung pictures, and shopped for groceries and for things like shower curtains and waste baskets and beer. We didn't get to see the Cubs or Hamilton, but we finished with pizza at a nice neighbor joint, knowing that, against formidable odds, we'd done well.
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