[rant]
Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?! Ok, maybe I should back up. The girl and I headed to Ikea yesterday to try and find the matching drawer for her desk that the Minneapolis Ikea was out of when we orginally bought it. I've been hearing stories about how the people of Stoughton are pissed about the whole situation and now I can see why. First, the traffic backs up onto the bloody expressway. Why? Because there is one way in and one way out (one lane each way to boot) and the giganto Jordan's furniture in between, which I might add sported some thinly veiled advertising taking potshots at Ikea and its shoppers (this was the highlight of the trip). In addition, there was a "traffic circle" on the road leading to the Ikea. I put it in quotes because it was not traffic circle in the truest sense, it was just a round lump of concrete in the middle of a normal intersection of two streets that you are forced to drive "around". No yield or stop signs to be found.
Aside: Not growing up on the east coast, traffic circles are a relatively new thing to me. Anyone that asks me about them, however, will be subjected to a profanity-laced treatise on how much I hate them. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand how they work and can navigate them just fine. It's not a ignorance issure here. I just believe that these are the worst traffic control systems ever created next to the combo enterance/exits on the expressway (where decelerating exiting traffic must crossover accelerating entering traffic in less than 100 yards). They probably worked great for horse buggies and when there were only a handful of slow-moving cars on the road. Now they serve no purpose and are completely inadequate for directing the flow of traffic in high traffic intersections. But I digress ...
Back to Ikea, after navigating the "circle", Ikea lies dead-ahead and this is where I completely lost it. Were they not expecting anyone to come here? They've only been advertising for like 100 years. I would say they had about 1/4 the parking that they actually needed to handle the number of people that what to shop there. Once in the parking area it became a game of dodging SUVs and hunting for the person walking back to their car so you could follow them and hope no one else noticed. After about 3 laps of the parking lot, we grew tired of this game, threw up our hands, and left. Somebody seriously fucked up in the design and layout of this place. Its really unbelievable how bad it is. They do such a great job of directly you through the store when you get there, but some how they blew when it came to actually getting to the store in the first place.
The only other highlight of the trip was the ZipCar advertisement outside of Ikea. On the sidewalk, there was a Mini with a big sign on it that said, I shit you not, "Take a ZipCar to Ikea". That's actually a great idea, except for the part where you have to try to put your Ikea swag in the bloody Mini. Again, what are these people thinking?
[/rant]
And just so we don't end on a sour note ... a new Strong Bad email finally emerges and our greatest fears have been laid to rest! Yay!
Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?! Ok, maybe I should back up. The girl and I headed to Ikea yesterday to try and find the matching drawer for her desk that the Minneapolis Ikea was out of when we orginally bought it. I've been hearing stories about how the people of Stoughton are pissed about the whole situation and now I can see why. First, the traffic backs up onto the bloody expressway. Why? Because there is one way in and one way out (one lane each way to boot) and the giganto Jordan's furniture in between, which I might add sported some thinly veiled advertising taking potshots at Ikea and its shoppers (this was the highlight of the trip). In addition, there was a "traffic circle" on the road leading to the Ikea. I put it in quotes because it was not traffic circle in the truest sense, it was just a round lump of concrete in the middle of a normal intersection of two streets that you are forced to drive "around". No yield or stop signs to be found.
Aside: Not growing up on the east coast, traffic circles are a relatively new thing to me. Anyone that asks me about them, however, will be subjected to a profanity-laced treatise on how much I hate them. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand how they work and can navigate them just fine. It's not a ignorance issure here. I just believe that these are the worst traffic control systems ever created next to the combo enterance/exits on the expressway (where decelerating exiting traffic must crossover accelerating entering traffic in less than 100 yards). They probably worked great for horse buggies and when there were only a handful of slow-moving cars on the road. Now they serve no purpose and are completely inadequate for directing the flow of traffic in high traffic intersections. But I digress ...
Back to Ikea, after navigating the "circle", Ikea lies dead-ahead and this is where I completely lost it. Were they not expecting anyone to come here? They've only been advertising for like 100 years. I would say they had about 1/4 the parking that they actually needed to handle the number of people that what to shop there. Once in the parking area it became a game of dodging SUVs and hunting for the person walking back to their car so you could follow them and hope no one else noticed. After about 3 laps of the parking lot, we grew tired of this game, threw up our hands, and left. Somebody seriously fucked up in the design and layout of this place. Its really unbelievable how bad it is. They do such a great job of directly you through the store when you get there, but some how they blew when it came to actually getting to the store in the first place.
The only other highlight of the trip was the ZipCar advertisement outside of Ikea. On the sidewalk, there was a Mini with a big sign on it that said, I shit you not, "Take a ZipCar to Ikea". That's actually a great idea, except for the part where you have to try to put your Ikea swag in the bloody Mini. Again, what are these people thinking?
[/rant]
And just so we don't end on a sour note ... a new Strong Bad email finally emerges and our greatest fears have been laid to rest! Yay!
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
i haven't been down to that ikea yet - i was hoping if i waited the madness would die down. apparently that's not happening. damn.