IKEA

For the second time in two weekends I find myself in IKEA. By find myself I mean my wife has put me there. She ironed some jeans and a shirt for me, she did the driving and encouraged me to listen to the radio station I wanted to listen to on the way down, some football commentary.

She explained that each of us could receive a bottomless cup of coffee there with a voucher she got on the last visit

This is a way for me to be supportive she suggests to me…you don’t have to buy anything, you don’t have to do anything, I’d just like you to come along to support me. Think of it like me coming to the football for you. We are talking about a sacrifice honey, its love really, a show of love.

IKEA is not like a normal shop, with a door, a way out, an exit. You take a breath at one end and then you swim and swim. There is a current, shadows of things you do not recognise lurk beneath you, a human tide of flotsam bobs and drifts, snags on reef, entangled , marooned…and you don’t surface until you have exited the checkout some later, some long time later.

This is an act of love I tell myself.

But somewhere between Curtains and Tupperware my love, my act of love wains.

I find the security guy and explain that I am feeling unwell and am experiencing an attack. Its treatable I tell him, I have felt like this before but I need to act on this quickly, I have to get out. I tell him this because IKEA does not give a man the option of a dignified exit. I am reduced to a lie.

I call her when I reach the car.

‘’I will wait for you. I will support you while I am in the car my love and ….listening to the football. You can call me if you need anything, any advice or just text, yes a text. That would be better so as you don’t break the flow of the game”.

#barefootdigital