existential bandaids

most people probably have the good sense to take a much-awaited day off, especially when that day off comes at the expense of working an overnight shift, as an excuse to catch up on needed errands, clean their apartments, or something relaxing and slower-paced than usual.

we are not those people.

after both working overnight shifts, my blogmate called me to see if i wanted brunch. of course i wanted brunch. but i had planned on picking up a few things at the store this morning. of course she wanted to come along shopping. but she would need coffee first. of course i wanted coffee also. but i had to stop at home first. of course she would stop with me. etcetera. two hours later, brunched and pre-erranded, we headed out - not for something easy, but for the mecca of illinois consumerism, the schaumburg ikea. i had the single goal of buying a closet organizer. somehow, my simple closet organizer turned into an orgy of "oh, actually, i've always been looking for..." and other similar justifications that ended in a mountain of plastic items with umlaut-ed names that i can neither remember nor pronounce. as i looked around, i realized that the only people at ikea on a thursday morning were perfect blonde housewives with their perfect blonde towheaded children in their perfect spring outfits lined up in perfect rows, hands folded across their bodies as they waited patiently for their perfect mothers to buy a perfect pink pillow for their rehabbed bedrooms in their split level ranches in bartlett. contrast that scene with us - two frazzled brunettes in fleet farm hoodies, carts overflowing with orange watering pots and rickety particle board storage solutions, nearly running over the perfect little people as we swerved the stubborn carts toward the checkout, breathless with relief that said storage solutions, larger than expected, actually fit in my 4-door plymouth... with such monumentous effort, one would also think we would count our blessings and head for home, or lunch, or shoes, or at least something small. but no. with the storage solutions properly stowed in my car, my ambitious and sleep-deprived blogmate decided that the best idea was to now buy a new dining table. a few minutes later, the perfect blonde housewives in the loading zone (who naturally drive perfect eddie bauer suvs), their pigtailed little ones buckled safely in their carseats and were about to drive off, except that they were probably frightened by frazzled brunettes cursing and throwing things, realizing that the dining table would never fit into the smaller less perfect plymouth. in the course of trying to make the table fit in my car, we took it out of the box, tried unsuccessfully to maneuver it that way, put it back in the box, and in the process managed to drop the table on the ground, making a satisfying loud crash, smearing it with car grease and scratching the finish a little. we finished boxing it up, and i waited in the car while my blogmate took it back to the store to ask them what to do. i take it they accepted the table, because the next thing i knew she was in the car saying "drive away from here before someone realizes what i've done."

now, we have never been those girls who want the house in the suburbs and to stay home with the kids. but we never meant to actively harm their children and their furniture. i can safely assume that my lack of desire for a perfect blonde life has something to do with my clumsiness (i managed to back my blogmate into a wooden bench resulting in big leg welts for her and skinned knuckles for me) and my overambitiousness (what was i doing at ikea after working a night shift, anyway?), but it sounds better to say that i just dislike it on principle.