Rednecks don’t do IKEA
Picture the scene: our new garden. Not humid. Not sticky. Just warm and perfect as a only a British summers evening can be. Sun slanting over the beautiful Magnolia tree in the back of the garden, casting the touch of shade required.
The Toeheads were jumping on their trampoline and were in fits of happy, barefoot giggles. Just like I hoped and prayed and prayed all those months ago when the going was really, really horribly rough. Thank you God. Thank you so much. If I have been too dog tired in recent weeks and forgot to say thank you, I am saying it now. The boys were happy and so was I. So utterly, simply happy to be alive and through the other side.
And in this moment, I thought I had the strength to tackle the final round of constructing my new bed from, wait for it, I-fucking-KEA. Darren, my gorgeous, freckled, sweet, funny, kind gardener (ahem which I had the most stupidly ENORMOUS crush on years ago when I first moved here over a decade ago and before he went travelling around the world he sold flowers at the posh flower stall near our Tube station) was putting the final touches on the summer house that will be the boys’ club house.
And I thought, hey, I don’t have to call Mr. Magnolia to help me flip this bed over and put the legs on it. I’ll ask Darren the gardener to help me. Why the hell not, right?
Why has it taken me a few weeks to build this damn bed? Well I’ll tell you.
IKEA as we all know can be super but it can also be the ninth ring of hell. It was the latter today (except for the fun sexy texts with the Toyboy about me being in my tennis kit going round it! God he is lovely!). I was there to get new steel plates for the bottom of the new bed which the legs get screwed into. The last 4 plates broke in the final stages of getting the legs on. I will spare you the details cause just thinking about it again makes me want to crawl into the bathtub with a few razor blades and a bottle of gin.
Anyway, so Darren helps me flip the bed. We try to screw the legs on and it works, but the bed is really wobbly and unstable. And Darren looks at me trying not to say anything. We’re both thinking the same thing. Bad damn choice of bed for a newly single woman.
And he is like, that bed is not very sturdy is it? That might not stand up to much…and he didn’t finish the sentence.
Ahem, forget overnight guests, how in sam hill am I going to sleep on the damn thing tonight? If I turn over, the damn thing is going to fall over. Great.
So I look at Darren and he looks at me and I say:
Bricks.
He is like, what? Prop the bed up on bricks? I am like yeah, do you know how many people in Poedunk prop porches, hell, whole damn houses on top of a load of old breezeblocks or bricks? (How do you know if you are a Redneck? Your porch falls down and kills six dogs)
We needed twelve bricks. Three for each corner of the bed. We only have 7 bricks. At this stage I start swearing and Darren is laughing his arse off.
Its 7 o’clock pm and I am not, not sleepin’ in this damn bed tonight. After managing to stay calm and bathe the Toeheads and hear the baby read his Biff and Chip book, kiss them both goodnight, I did what any practical Southern woman would do. Told my mother’s help I would be back in an hour.
I hopped into my posh estate car, still wearing my Lily Pulitzer (www.lillypulitzer.com) trousers, toting a cream Marc Jacobs bag and wearing hot pink Birkenstocks and drove straight to Wickes DIY off Hanger Lane to buy 12 bricks (FYI ya’ll, open until 9pm).
I am accustomed to turning heads, but you should have seen them just flat out stare, I mean stare at me in Wickes. I did not give one red hot damn. Yes I was wearing lime green, hot pink and coral trousers picking bricks off the warehouse self. But I was on a mission and God help anyone that got in my way. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do in the clothes your wearing, you know?
And, one hour later, just like a lotta folk’s porches in Poedunk, my new bed from IKEA is sitting, perfectly stable and perfectly perfect on top of 12 bricks.
Sweet dreams ya’ll.
Ms. Magnolia
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