Plastic Fantastic

On a recent trip to the East Bay, the big blue-and-yellow building beamed down on us as we neared the Emeryville exit, beckoning us into the land of cheap, chic and cheap furnishings. Our last and only visit to Ikea was with Guruji and family over a year ago. The guru stayed in the car while we shopped - smart man. The monolithic Disneyland of Swedish style was teeming this mid-week day with eager consumers, and it was only 11 a.m. Never again, we said to each other as we blindly shuffled through the bottom floor in deer-in-headlights bewilderment. Still, armed with our trusty colossal cart, we persevered, hunting down a pair of smart sawhorses for our new makeshift desk, white blinds at a bargain basement price and this plastic lotus-like lamp, that might pass for a fashionable fixture when it's hanging 18ft overhead. Salivating thoughts of an O Chame lunch in Berkeley helped us through the 45 minute wait at check out, as we chanted "never again" over and over. PS. We returned a week later for more blinds. Never again.