Happy Ikea Day

Gratuitous Dog Picture

Today Shana and I took advantage of the Massachusetts sales tax holiday to purchase my bookcases at Ikea in Stoughton. This is the only Ikea in Massachusetts; it is an hour away and off Cape. That makes it more than a casual visit, so I had not been there yet. The very idea of it was so thrilling that I gave up a meeting with my Stitch 'n Bitch to make the trip. I sat down at the computer with my measurements and worked out which units would fit in my space - floor to ceiling and around the corner in my alcove. When I was sure I had it down I checked to see that all were in stock at my store and printed out my shopping list. This is a great feature of the Ikea website, because then you have the price including tax and you are certain you have the item numbers right.

My Bookcases and My Pepsi

Oddly enough, we were not the only people who had put Ikea at the top of the tax free shopping list. There were police and Ikea people directing traffic outside. Inside we did not have that advantage. When we started out Shana was trying to keep me from lollygagging along in front of people, but eventually she just had to give up because it was "City of the Lost Lollygaggers" in there. I got the pickup locations for the items on my list with the stock numbers for the color I decided on after I got to the store (so much for my shopping list!) and we wandered around checking out the other offerings. I thought we were extremely restrained - in addition to my bookcases we only picked up a magnetic knife rack, some drapes for the kitchen sliders, and a mat for our yet-to-be-tiled shower in the shape of an alligator.  To be fair, we did not look at everything in the store. We were worn out by traffic and din in about an hour and a half, and I stood in line at the home delivery desk for about half an hour after that. I had thought that maybe we could take them back with us and save the delivery fee, but the boxes are much longer than I can accommodate and I did not want to drive back with nearly three hundred pounds tied to my roof with twine in light rain. That just did not seem to be the best plan ever.

The Line for Home Delivery

After we got back to the Cape I picked up a box of finishing nails and a nail set to replace our baseboards, and our orgy of spending was over. The tax savings on the interior paint we bought Saturday and the Ikea purchases paid for about half of our delivery charges, so we were very pleased even though they won't deliver my order for about ten days. That will give me time to paint my library and get ready to see my beloved books again.