Saturday, the first day of this ungodly 100+ degree heat wave we’ve been having here we decided that we would make the ikea trip that we’ve been putting off for at least a month now.
I should have taken it as a sign of things to come when I spent all morning searching in vain for the receipt for the defective mikael filing cabinet. Not deterred, I convinced Jeff that we needed to go to Ikea Elizabeth, about an hour drive from our house rather than Ikea Paramus, a 20 minute drive because they had the perfect patio umbrella and outdoor canvas canopy thingy for our pergola in stock.
Supposedly.
In addition to these two things, I still had to return a set of curtains (that I did have the receipt for) and also wanted to pick up two more of the adorable malaro white chairs for our patio set:

And bonus, they are having a summer sale, so some of these things may even be marked down!
After arriving at lunch time and waiting in line for 30 minutes for food, we wended our way through the top floor show room like obedient lab rats and finally arrived at the marketplace in search of the outdoor items.. which were actually displayed in the middle of the self service area.
You wouldn’t think that would be a big enough place to display them, but ha, it is! Because guess what? They don’t have ANYTHING left.
Now, I know what you ikea savvy shoppers are thinking, why would I expect the items to still be there after the summer sale has already been in progress for two weeks?
Because I checked the item availability on Ikea’s website for the umbrella 5 minutes before we left, that’s why! It said “in stock” yes.. which I oh so naively took to mean that they had the product in stock.
I called over a woman from that product area to ask her to double check, figuring maybe they JUST sold out and there was one lying around somewhere. “Oh no, we sold out of that like a month ago” she says. I think my blood pressure just about doubled at that point.
So they didn’t have the umbrella which was the main reason for our trip there, but they would have the outdoor canopy thingy right? Nope, they don’t have that either. Sold out.
And the Malaro chairs? Sold out too.
GRRRRRRRARRGHH!!!!
Lest you don’t believe me, here is a stock report from Ikea’s site for the elusive Karlso umbrella that I generated JUST NOW (see thet date and time?)

I like the part where it says “we always err on the side of caution to avoid disappointment”.
The moral of the story is that Ikea’s website “stock” check is a big bunch of crap. I asked an “associate” how the hell one was supposed to avoid wasting the major part of their Saturday and at least $15 worth of gas for nothing.. she said to call and ask for that department and speak to someone in person. Ok fine, but why the hell don’t they say that on the website? Why even offer an absurdly inaccurate stock check at all?
After picking up a few items we could have gotten at our local paramus Ikea Jeff waited in line to checkout while I stomped off to get some frozen yogurt to dull my pain…
The frozen yogurt machine was broken.
Big suprise.
Filed under: weekend update by ariana
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