A Week in Hell

Let me preface this entry with the following statement: Based upon my first week in Los Angeles, I feel confident saying that spending a week in eternal flames almost sounds inviting.
LA itself is amazing, sunny 70 degrees everyday, with the exception of my first three days in the city. Los Angeles experienced 40-year record breaking rainfall…Just my luck, right?

So, the rain poured, but on the sunnier side my furniture and remaining wardrobe was only days from arrival. Anyone can live without furniture, dishes and clothing for a few days. The arrival date for my movers came and went with the disappointment of news that my belongings were apparently being housed in a warehouse somewhere in Chicago until I mailed the moving company a cashiers check for half of the balance; and that balance being twice as much as I was originally quoted. Oh the joys of moving…

The cashiers check went to Chicago, overnight ($17) with the promise that my furniture would be on the next truck headed west, scheduled to leave within days. At last, a bed and couch in my future.

While waiting for my furniture, IKEA beckoned and lured me in. Like a desperate fool I caved to the idea of purchasing an unassembled Scandinavian futon. The IKEA experience in itself is traumatizing, but let’s gets to the good stuff. I had the ridiculously heavy and cumbersome futon box loaded into the backseat of a sedan (that was fun). Get the piece home, even the valet struggled loading it onto the luggage cart and away it went into my empty apartment. A Scandinavian twin futon beats the hell out of the floor, right?

Thinking it would take only an hour to assemble my new bed/chair I emptied the box, opened the tool set and took a gander at the assembly instructions. Bravo, the instructions were comprised of stick figure diagrams. No words, just stick figures without faces showing the proud new owner where to put the screws. I know where the screws went…my MasterCard.

After about an hour (the hour I estimated assembly) I realized that what I had assembled was on the wrong side of the frame so I had to disassemble my hour of hard work. Another night on the floor, because I had no furniture meant I had no lamp and my living room doesn’t have overhead lighting. My hopes of sleeping on the IKEA twin futon dissipated. Bambi and I sprawled out on the floor with my neck pillow among the nuts, bolts, screws and three-piece wood and metal futon frame.

Next day, more rain. I ventured to Target to pick up a few essentials, toasted, microwave, vacuum cleaner, etc. Knowing I would only be in the store a few minutes I made the fatal mistake of parking on the street, opposed to paying the 10 dollar garage fee. As I looked for the elevator to the street fortunately, a Target building maintenance man directed me to the seemingly correct elevator and stepped onboard. My floor was up, the door slid open and the wheels on my cart seemed to be stuck, by stuck I mean not moving. The line to enter the elevator was at least 15 people deep, all staring at my disabled cart which was blocking their entry. The maintenance man came to my rescue, popped the cart up on two wheels and saved me from the wolf pack at the elevator. A guy in line snarled “you can’t take the carts out of the store, duh” as me and the maintenance man shuffled by, refraining from eye contact with people in the elevator line. At last, I opened the door to the street and low and behold the door came out around the block from where my car was parked!

In hopes I would fall off of the face of the earth, the maintenance man abandoned the Target cart on the sidewalk, threw my boxes on his shoulders and followed me around the block to my car in the pouring rain. We loaded the boxes into my trunk, I thanked him and palmed him a ten spot for his trouble and slammed the trunk abruptly ready to escape the torrential downpour.

A paralyzing pain shot up my arm when I realized that my pinky finger was trapped in the trunk. With the other weak hand, I grabbed the latch and released the flat, purple little finger from the enormous mouse trap. Though I had been in such a hurry to escape the rain I burst into tears and stood in the icy showers for a few more moments before I could muster the strength to collapse into the driver’s seat.

I finished my errands with pain pulsating into my pinky fingertip. The rain remained persistent. Back at mi casa, the unassembled futon welcomed me. Nearing dusk and five hours later, the futon was ready for inauguration. To my dismay, and for the record, Scandinavian furniture is definitely not Tempurpedic….