Here We Go Again

I went on holiday last weekend. Shame, I can't post picture of exotic beaches or pictures of sumptuous meals and so because it was just KL. Land of endless phantom jams and the melting pot for haze and the heat. I needed to unwind badly. At least Puchong was slightly less hazy and well, it was still hot, but Ian has a freezer for a room. So it's alright.

So again -- like I've said on number of occasions -- nothing works better to kick 'em stress away than to go shopping. So after spending some time surfing the web, checking my mails, art directing Ian (hehe) and hanging about. I decided to take a nap. About 30minutes later my phone rang.

"Meng, I just took half of Friday off," Ju breaks the news to me on the phone, as I hung out in her room, which was in this house where Ian works, we like to call it, THE AGENCY, "Wanna go Ikea ah?"

How could I turn such an offer down? I'm iffing to go myself, "OH YES, PLEASE!"

We left Ian at the agency and hit the road. After surviving the ride there without making one single remark about the state of her Myvi -- which was quite the mess, scattered snow-flake-like cigarette ash, nothing unforeseen -- we arrived and over-shot Ikea by about 1km. But it was intentional, Burger King is just down the road. People in KL make the effort to go to Penang for the sake of its sensational hawker food, we do likewise, but for Burger King instead. Cos KL hawker is just dubiously up in the air. It boggles me that we still don't have one in Penang. Why-o-why.

"Ju, I swear to god, I always thought your Myvi is off the apple-green range," I always tell her that whenever I'm in her car, "Champaign is just not quite YOU."

"Well, sorry that it's gold..." she states the obvious.

"You mean Champaign," I intrude to correct her.

"...I mean, yeah, Champaign, get used to it. Hey, at least it's not silver right? Such a stereotype colour cina colour," says her as her mom did ordered the silver version. She begged to have it changed. Good call.

We arrive at Ikea and proceeded to park and head straight up. On our way up, I spotted this bedroom setting, which was the ugliest piece of interior decor I've ever seen, "Ju! I don't think I'll ever shag a chick on this setting because it's so flamboyantly extravagant," I pointed that out to Ju, "Can you?"

"Ewww, so ugly, maybe if the lights were dimmer," she replied.

Commence shopping! After ogling and romanticizing on having my own place just so I can buy these beautifully design, cheap unreliable furniture and place it in my house, we made our way to the other side, where they sell the products individually.

They simply have too many beautiful lamps there. It doesn't help that most of it are so-bloody-cheap-that-I'll-buy-2-just-for-kicks. Ju is lost in her thoughts in front of the clock section. Both of us are on a tight budget. We do not intend to splash out any more than RM100. I tell you, it was one bloody cheap shopping spree.

And because we wanted to buy everything and anything pretty, we decided to be negative and focus on negativity. Like when Ju was contemplating on beautiful yet simple wall and desktop clocks, "Ju, let's test if it makes a loud ticking sound," I suggest as both of us stretch our bodies to have a test.

"Wah," Ju says, "damn loud hor the ticking sound."

I agreed with her, it was the loudest clock I've seen, so I told her, "Screw it, this thing will deprive you of sleep at night, not to mention it will also show the amount of hours of sleep you'll missed by listening to it going tickticktick," and spared her RM20.

"What about this desktop clock?" she asks, "It's so nice!"

"Well Ju, you can be quite clumsy," I told her, "just imagine how annoying it will be when you accidentally smash one of those hand."

"True."

This method is working well. Very well.

We arrived at the lamp section and my eyes spotted this beauty. It was one of those smoky glass type lamps. But unlike its rectangle counterparts, this one resembles a round vase, "JU!" I yell at her silently, "This is soooo nice!" It was, however, a tad pricier compared to the rectangle one.

I decided to apply the 'Find the Negativity" method on this. While Ju is still fixated on the lamp, I decided to shook it, to test its standing stability, "Ummm..." I placed my hand on the opening on top and went about shaking it, "Not very stable huh?"

She agreed, we shook it some more, and every other identical one just to make sure it isn't a one-off defect. We went back to the rectangle ones and contemplated some more, "Ju, should I buy one more just because it's so bloody cheap?!"

She had no answer, she seems to be thinking about buying 2 herself. However, about 20-minutes later, after endlessly debating on the topic, I took just one. Another 1 1/2 hours was spend just trying to make our way to the counter.

In the end, I bought a lamp (that rectangle one), 2 bulbs, a tea-candle light holder thingy, supposedly scented tea-candle lights, a plastic bag dispenser and umm, I think that was about it. RM0.50 shy of RM60. Not too bad. The next thing I know, I was holding my bag and discovered Ju has already placed an ice-cream on my other hand, the free hand. As we enjoyed the ice-cream, we did not enjoy not remembering where the car was...

"Ju, I don't see that ugly bed setting when we parked!" I told her, as that was the only sort of 'landmark' I remember seeing. It didn't help that none of us remembered what colour the floor was as well.

"The one that you said you won't even think of shagging on it because it's too flamboyantly extravagant?"

"Yeah, that one," I said, "I think we're on the wrong floor."

She insisted we were on the right floor and for some reason beyond my control, I thought so too. We walked around like a headless chicken, lugging our disposable Ikea plastic bags around, eating our ice-creams and got no where near of finding it. Then a revelation when I notice we were on ground-level, "Didn't we parked at the underground level?"

And we did. We found out 20-minutes later.

We made it back to the car, "Ju! There! Ugly bed setting, we're on the right floor!" I said as we walked past it again after walking down another flight of stairs. Both me and Ju threw everything to the back seat and left. By now, the fatigue has finally set in, "Woah damn tired lah," she sighs, "But it was so much fun. Meng, you should come down more often. No one here ever goes to Ikea with me!"

"Well, no one ever takes me there when I'm here!" I snap back.

"Now you have me!"

I found me a new shopping buddy. The uncle-niece combo. Woooo!!!