Incident at IKEA
August 11th
Incident at Ikea
On Monday, a month to the day of our big move I thought I’d celebrate with the boys by playing at home and cuddling under blankets during a day of thundering rainstorm. But then the sun came out and I started to get restless…Ikea returns were calling. So we headed out to Paramus with a little protest on the boys part. While shopping, I noticed that I recognized many of the sales people who had helped me on previous visits, I saw the guy who helped with the mattress for the guest room. The woman who helped me find shoe storage. The girl who helped me in bedding and said she heard the Brooklyn store was in bad area and would be afraid to work there. I even saw the really nice lady in lighting who helped me find the bathroom when Dash had an accident and let me keep my cart with her. I used to think of going to Ikea the same way I’d think of Christmas: it happened once a year, I shopped with abandon and always ended up fighting with someone in my family.
Now that I can recognize the staff, I think it’s time for me to find other ways to spend my time. But I probably won’t stop until they start to recognize me.
So maybe it was because I was feeling like a member of the Ikea family, that what happened next seemed so upsetting. We were in the parking lot and Conrad was fiddling around in the front seat got his finger stuck in the latch of the compartment between the driver seat and the passenger seat. I was hauling stuff in the trunk and I heard him cry out. The screams became so intense that by the time I got to the passenger seat I expected to see blood. His finger was so wildly wedged into the latch of drink holder. I couldn’t pull it out without surely pulling off his entire nail. I ducked out of the car and screamed, Help! Help! I need Help with my son! He’s a little boy. I need help.
No one came.
There were people loading their car only 100 feet away and they didn’t hear me. He kept screaming so I went back tried to twist it out and then ducked out to scream for more help and still no one came. When I ducked back into the seat Conrad had pulled it out himself, a brave act that made me proud and heartbroken for him at the same time.
His finger was purple and the nail was already turning black. I had him dunk it in water, rather than rush back to the store for ice, the walk seemed too long to do any good. We’d be home in 14 minutes anyway. A man finally did come by but only to ask me for my palette cart, but I didn’t realize it and I said oh thanks we’re fine now and he just rolled the cart away.