The closest ikea is in Charlotte, so we packed up Lee's big car and left Olivia in the dust.
Mom drove while Ellen and I sang show tunes. It was just like old times. Ellen squirmed around a bit, feeling strange to leave her baby overnight for the first time and then she laid down and fell right to sleep.
Ellen woke up from her nap as the Ellen she used to be before she had a baby. She pulled up a map of shops surrounding our hotel and worked out an eating and shopping schedule while occasionally chastising Mom for driving too slowly.
"Mom, if we get there by four we can hit World Market and Hobby Lobby before we eat dinner!" Mom was driving just fine. We came upon a Friday-afternoon traffic blob that delayed us a smidge and Ellen reminded us that she could have made the drive in just three hours. "There is an Outback real close to the hotel. Let's say we eat there, we can get back to the hotel and be in bed by 8:30." Mom and I quietly mused in our gentle ways of existing while Ellen mapped the distance from our hotel to an ihop to the ikea. "How about ihop for breakfast tomorrow? If we get up around 7:30 we can get to ihop early so that we can have a relaxing breakfast and then get to ikea when it opens at 9:00. We need to get there early!" We were all actually quite excited about the ihop idea.
We pulled into Charlotte around 4:30 and Ellen hastily scampered into our hotel. Mom and I slowly brought up the rear. We did a quick refresh and were in the shopping center across the street by 5:00. We "hit" three stores. Mom and Ellen both "hit" places, and something about this endears them to me in a unique way.
"How was your trip. Mom?" I may ask.
"It was great. We hit a few good stores and a great seafood restaurant!"
By 6:30 we were ready for supper and had all loosely agreed on the nearby Outback steakhouse. We immediately noticed that the parking lot was packed and that many of the cars had entire families inside. We chalked this up to "city life" and carried on into the restaurant where they told us it would be a 30 minute wait. They asked us to standby in our car and said they would text when our table was ready. Mom was the least amused by this but she and Ellen figured it would take just as long to find another place with a shorter wait, so we hopped back into the car and waited.
We were not far into the downtime when Ellen and Mom became a little testy. Mom in particular seemed outraged by the number of people around. We were sitting next to a three way stop in the parking lot. I noticed how many cars didn't actually stop at all, and it inspired to me to begin narrating The 56th Annual Stop Sign Competition. We would watch as a car would come along the main drag and slowly put on the brakes. Would they stop? Nearly stop? Roll right on through? The anticipation was exhilarating. Contestants were graded on an A+ to F- scale, though failure to slow down even a little bit resulted in instant disqualification. I'm proud to tell you that I had Mom and Ellen cackling with delight. I felt like a hero. I narrated the Stop Sign Competition for thirty minutes and that's when the wait became too much for my audience.
"Well that's it for us today at the 56th Annual Stop Sign Competition. 1st Place goes to the family man in the red SUV, stopping for an entire three count before moving on. 2nd Place goes to that sleepy woman who maintained a full stop while mid-yawn. 3rd Place is a three-way tie to that polite grouping who had a patience standoff in the intersection.
Join us next year to see the added obstacles for our newest round of contestants. Roadside complications include; thugs with guns, handicapped veteran crossing, suspicious backpack, and an occasional hooker. See how next year's contestants stand up to the challenge at the 57th Annual Stop Sign Competition."
Ellen called the hostess desk in the Outback, politely asking how much longer. They had no record of Ellen on the waitlist and Mom became incensed. They had us come inside to wait another 15 minutes and even though Mom was wearing a mask I could tell she was giving the whole place the stink-eye. She felt better as soon as they put warm bread and butter in front of her.
Just as planned, we were back at the hotel and Ellen was in bed before 9:00. Ellen darted through washing her face, brushing her teeth, and running through the schedule for tomorrow. "So, up at 7:00 -7:30, ihop by 8:00, outside of ikea at 9:00. Sound good? Ok. Goodnight!" She jumped into bed, whipped the covers up over her head, and rolled over.
Mom and I stayed up watching a movie and then I wandered into the bathroom to discover the horrors of proper lighting. We have bad lighting in our bathroom at home. I can't see pimples and straggling hairs and this oblivion allows me to live a blissful life. Here, in the Holiday Inn Express bathroom, lit by harsh fluorescents, I discovered eyebrow hairs I haven't seen since my address changed three years ago. I've always only had one big eyebrow. I make a point of tweezing a big space in the middle so that it looks like I have two. But here I noticed that my eyebrows almost continue right into my hairline. I basically have a band of fur that wraps around the top half of my head. Then I looked down at my mustache. MY MUSTACHE! I was appalled. How has no one said anything to me? Do I not have true friends? I didn't pack tweezers in my overnight bag so I became fixated on my facial hair for the remainder of our trek.
Ellen couldn't stand it and woke us up around 6:45. She was already awake so she thought we ought to be as well. She summoned Mom first and I pretended to be asleep hoping she would leave me be. She played off her urgency as love and tried to curl in next to me under the covers but I wasn't falling for it. I rejected her false love and then she went over and whipped open the blackout curtains, blinding the room with sunlight. We rallied for ihop, throwing on our duds and grabbing our bags. We would come back after to brush our teeth and check out of the hotel. We drove just a little ways to the ihop where they again bestowed upon us a thirty minute wait. Mom could not believe it and out loud said to Ellen and the hostess, "Well we'll go somewhere else. I don't want to wait!"
This is not the Nancy I know so I was equal parts amused and horrified. Ellen seemed only horrified and quickly applied her fast planning skills to her phone and she found us another breakfast place around the corner. While we drove, Mom carried on about how many people are around, and "what's with this waiting, and how do people live like this?" Mom was hangry. I wondered if living with impatient Dad was finally rubbing off on her. We got to the new breakfast spot and Mom settled down as soon as they put some coffee in front of her.
We wound up loving our breakfast spot so much that we dilly-dallied and enjoyed ourselves. Ellen did not leave room for "enjoyment" in our agenda so we were officially running behind. In an effort to make up time, Ellen plowed through our next steps. We came back to the hotel to use the bathroom, brush our teeth, pack up, and check out. Mom took the bathroom first. She wasn't in there three minutes when Ellen said, "You know, I'll just use the lobby bathroom and meet y'all at the car." She grabbed her bag and off she went.
Just ten minutes later, Mom and I came down to the lobby and walked to the front desk. "We're checking out of room 330," Mom said.
"Oh, someone has already checked y'all out." We looked through the glass doors and saw Ellen in the parking lot. The trunk to the car was open and she leaned against the bumper wearing sunglasses like an impatient chauffeur. I tossed my bag into the back. Ellen grabbed Mom's, tossed it in and then brought down the heavy trunk door right down onto Mom's head. Mom's knees buckled and she let out little yelp. Ellen felt awful. She and I both held onto little curled up Mom as she held onto her head and said nothing. I waited for blood. Ellen apologized profusely. I wondered if Mom had a concussion. The very corner of that metal door had come down onto the top of Mom's head. Being a gracious person, she tried to assure Ellen that she was ok but when Ellen went around to get into the driver seat Mom shot me daggers with her eyes. "She's in such a crappin' hurry."
We arrived at ikea at 9:05. The line wrapped around the building.
"I told you! I told you we should have been here earlier!" Ellen shouted. Based on previous reactions to waiting in line, I assumed we would bag the whole thing and drive home. But without frustration or discussion, Mom and Ellen hopped right out of the car and got in line. Now I was the angry one. I'm not standing in a parking lot for two hours for this. I don't even need anything from ikea. We wound up only having to wait about 10 minutes so I was instantly chastized for the one and only time on this trip that I wasn't patient and delightful.
We made it through the whole ikea store in about two hours. This was Ellen's first ikea experience so she hadn't known what to expect. She and Mom found lots of good things for Ellen's new place and Mom splurged and bought four bathmats. That's big for her. I bristled at the crowded mobs of people in there while my mustache bristled against my cotton mask. I fingered my eyebrows as I walked the aisles, selecting small kitchenware pieces that I could't wait to try out.
We were back on the road and heading home by lunch time. Ellen drove home "became Mom drives too slow!" We plowed along at record time. This time Mom napped while Ellen and I mused in that opposite way we do. Mom got dropped off first. We unloaded her goods and said goodbye and then Ellen drove me to my house. Ellen helped me carry my ikea bags to the door and Brett came to say hello. We chit-chatted and I put things away, and then hasty Ellen sped off towards her house with my suitcase still the trunk.
I had to walk over and pick up the next day.
If she wan't in such a crappin' hurry all the time...
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