Ikea

Dear IKEA,

I am writing to you today because I had difficulty finding spare hardware from two Ikea locations (one urban and one suburban) for the Mammut crib I bought from you in 2010. I had to disassemble the crib and bring it over to my mother-in-law's house for a spell because we were staging our house in a different way to make it more desirable to buy because we have had difficulty selling it (reference #OccupyWallStreet for starters). Also, the baby was not digging the crib yet, as he prefers to sleep in his pack-and-play. However, babies grow and it is now time to go back into his crib. So I went to my mother-in-law's to get the crib and brought it back home. I put the crib together per your instructions and was saddened to realize my error. I had lost one bolt assembly in the move. This bolt assembly's lone responsibility in life is to hold up one quarter (1/4) of the mattress. I had three of his friends, but this one assembly evidently went Nemo on us. Without this little guy, the mattress would cave-in whenever weight would approach its corner. Translated- Not Baby Safe (NBS).

I decided to bring this issue to the fine Ikea located in South Philadelphia to only be greeted by the following fine exchange between two charming customer service representatives. Let me preface this by saying I am not in anyway mad at the employees. They deal with less handsome and more angry customers on the regular. My anger is more geared at the curious policies being followed by your confusing company.

"I need these parts" (basically a bolt, a nut, a washer, and a non-threaded eyeloop). I had an example of what I needed (Nemo's friends) and the assembly instructions with the part ID. The rep checked and said they didn't have the eye loop.

"Can I order that eyeloop?" was met with a "No".

"Well how can I get the part?" was answered with a "You can keep checking back in".

I said, "Oh, well when do you get parts deliveries" to which the other, more disinterested rep replied "we get parts deliveries twice a year".

I said, "Well I guess I don't really have to keep checking in. When's the next delivery". Disinterested replies "we got this year's delivery already."

Since checking back in to see if the delivery that wasn't expected had arrived was not the ideal solution, I requested to speak to a manager. The manager also searched for the part and he said it also was not in stock and not able to be ordered. The reason crib parts are not stocked is because Ikea can't make money off rebuilding cribs because it is illegal to sell a used crib. That's fine. But I asked if they still sold the crib, which they did, and if so how would someone get a part if it was missing in the box. He replied that he didn't know and he told me to check next door at Lowe's. Lowe's couldn't match the threadless eyeloop and the employee there cursed Ikea as apparently they regularly send customers to Lowe's to find Ikea-designed hardware. Most eyeloops have threads. I was tempted to have the Ikea manager help me shop in Lowe's but I had my son with me who was getting hungry, so I went home.

Once I got home I was pretty flyered (angry but also excited about hockey) up so I left the baby with my wife and headed to Conshohocken. Once there I was informed of this policy:

"No longer have the receipt, or it's over 90 days from the date of purchase?: IKEA does carry replacement parts for a majority of our products; however, we cannot guarantee availablity. In most cases, spare parts are only issued for items that have damaged or missing parts upon receipt, if the return is made within 90 days of the purchase date.
If you no longer have a receipt, many of our store locations have bins of the most commonly used hardware in the Customer Service/Returns Desk area. Depending on quantity, charges may apply."

This policy basically means that spare parts are available for products bought within 90 days. For those of you who bought the product outside of 90 days, there are no parts unless the store is lucky enough to have it. You cannot order them. While understanding the logic (not really) I really wanted the parts so I figured I would just start shouting. The customer service rep (at the new location) decided to actually look and was able to locate the eyeloop. She was more shocked than I was. I still needed clarification on why spare parts could not even be ordered if I was willing to pay cash money. Her answer was, well we are the only furniture store that replaces its own hardware. I replied, well you kind of have to provide replacements for your own hardware because a lot of it is Ikea specific. She didn't know how to handle that one. I asked her what I would have to do if she didn't have that eyeloop and she implied that I would have to buy a new crib. This seemed like a great customer service solution. "Lost one bolt? Buy a new crib". A crib that is not yet two years old that has barely been used is not able to be used because of a policy that refuses to deal with customers that have been loyal for over 90 days. I decided to leave since I have now collected 3/4 of Nemo and I think I matched the bolt up pretty well at Ace. I will put it together and hope for the best.

I hope that you can explain to me the reasoning why hardware is not made available for sale. The hardware at Ikea is not compatible with most stuff found at regular hardware stores (the manager at Ikea told me the bolts are better at Lowe's anyway...really nice to hear from someone selling cribs to families) so it needs to be made available to customers who bought stuff over 90 days ago.

Laterz,
Todd

4ever blog

A

billion years ago
you read this blog

and you liked it.

Now

not so much.

It's pretty bad. I could tell you about the new fish accessories I bought.
I willn't though. I will do my best to never say anything about it.

But it will cost you your IP address



In a not so serious note, it was determined a long time ago that

Two really expensive songs

for free


The Cat That Lived Outside

I was born in Iceland

2011 Delaware Marathon recap

I ran in the Delaware Marathon this past Sunday, which happened to also be known as May 15th. It was hard. It was my third marathon and it counted towards my second state. 48 more states to go. It was by far the hardest of the three. The Philadelphia Marathon and the Sun Trust National Marathon (DC) are much easier in comparison. The reason being that the Delaware Marathon has hills. Not a ton of hills, but enough to be annoying. It was a looped course (2 loops) and the hills popped up around mile 8 or 9 and mile I don't know 16 or 17. That math probably doesn't make sense, but it was the same hill. I think the rise was for a good mile/mile and a half. Coming down the hill was surprisingly harder than going up the hill for me. I think that explains something about my training.

I signed up for the Delaware Marathon because it was the second closest marathon to my house. Although I think Wilmington might be a few minutes closer than Philadelphia. The Delaware Marathon is real cool because I think there are only about 750 marathoners allowed to enter. There are 2000 runners total for the weekend, when combining the relay, the marathon, and the half marathon. I may have made those numbers up. The marathon starts about 5 minutes before the relay and about 20 minutes before the half marathon. This leads to not a lot of congestion. I'm pretty sure the National and Philadelphia started marathoners and half-marathoners together, so it is real crowded for the first 13. The negative about the Delaware Marathon was the email subscription list. You basically did not get any emails. Maybe 2. So you just had to hope there wasn't anything updated. The website was a good source of information I guess.

When it was about May 13th, I started to realize I had to run a marathon on May 15th. I bought new socks and an anti-chaffing stick. Not like a stick from a tree. More like a deodarant stick. Oh I bought some Gu. On the 14th I went to the expo which was small and fast to get through. I got my #, a free pint glass, and a shirt to wear when I want. I wore it earlier today actually. Then I drove home and we had Maksim's birthday party at Ridley Creek State Park.

The next morning I woke up at 5 and drove back to Wilmington. I went to the bathroom at home. At Dunkin Donuts on the way. At the port-o-potty spot (long line but went fast). And in the train station (secret spot). Then I lined up and they shot a gun that sounded like a large bomb. We all started running. By mile 3 I realized I was going to have an awful day. The part of my right hip/groin (huh?) showed signs it was going to appear at mile 16 again. I wasn't into running at all and I was tempted to run back to my car, which was parked on the route. I decided that I wouldn't get my car then, but I would hop in it if I still felt crappy at mile 15. It was raining early in the race which caused my glasses to fog.

Since I couldn't see a damn thing I ran slow. Even if I could see I woulda ran slow. Wasn't into it at all. Then at mile 4 or 5 some dude started talking to me. I usually hate talking and running, but I guess something changed. It was easy to do. First dude was in his mid-40s and he has won a 50 mile race before. I said WOW. I told him I won a 5K once but it was kind of sketchy because I technically came in second and I might not have even really paid for it. Then we talked about the Schuylkill River. Then he ran faster than I did at a water stop. I didn't try to catch up. He might have run past me during one of the loops back in, but I wouldn't have recognized him because I talked to him during the I CAN'T SEE part of the marathon. I'm sure he didn't win.

At the end of the marathon I somehow managed to run with some 66 year old dude. This was one when I was doing the run-walk-hobble that began around mile 16 when my leg stopped working again. He had on his 50 States marathon club shirt. It also said two times on it. So he has run a marathon in 50 states at least twice. When I told him that was my goal to do it once, he said don't do it 12 times. I'm not sure what that meant. He may have run it 12 times. He has run the Delaware Marathon 9 times. Which is how many times the race has been run. He was cool. He congratulated everybody that we passed or passed us. He congratulated the water giver outters and the traffic stoppers. He was cool. I forget his name. I saw him near the end of the race after talking calf cramps with some guy who ran the Virginia Beach Marathon around mile 25. I was feeling better so I left VBM guy and hobble ran a decent finish. A half mile from the end I saw the 66 year old dude again. I asked if he wanted to run the loop again. He said I was crazy. Then he said I ran a good race. And then he took off. I didn't catch up. It was really cool. I'm sure he ran another loop.

Slowest marathon yet, but easily the most fun. I'm not able to repeat marathons but I would do this one again. Maybe when I'm 66 I'll do it.

Unproofread is what the above is. Hope it's coherent enough.

the sign on the side of the road that no one ever saw.

The sign on the side of the road was hidden by a tree. The giant tree kept whatever was on the sign secret from the drivers driving by but it seemed to be ok because the street was a pretty safe one and there had not been any accidents in all of my years of driving on that street. Well maybe there was one or two accidents, but I think I might have only read about them in a newspaper. One story went along with the following title:

"Accident on Montgomery Street. Everybody was more than Fine"

I remember that day, reading about the accident. It was the most pleasant accident story ever written. It stated that Mr. Cosmo and Ms. Dee bumped cars accidentally when they both slowed down suddenly to try and get the other's attention. They bendered the fenders every so slightly but neither seemed to mind as they both rolled into the street to meet with a kiss. I love you Ms. Dee shouted Mr. Cosmo as he fell in the street. Yes Yes Yes Ms. Dee shouted. Everyone else on the street pulled over to applaud. It was a sure a strange, but pleasant news article. I think I read it once or twice just to confirm the words were there. I threw the paper away a little later that week, but the story remained over the years, but to be honest I stopped thinking about it a while ago.

That was until one day I was driving again along Montgomery St. when I was slowed to a crawl. Construction up ahead. Ahead we crept in our cars, and the reason for the delay was the tree was coming down by the street crew. It took a few days to chop down the giant tree, and as I drove by each day the sign became more and more clear until it was there for everyone to see.

the fat-faced dog

There was a fat-faced dog on my paper route. He sat on the porch when it was nice out. When he saw me coming, he'd get up and start to come down the stairs to chase me. He'd get down about three steps before the rope he was tied to would pull him back up. He'd look at me and I would peddle away on my stupid little bike. Once in a while I'd taunt that fat-faced dog, by shouting stuff like "Hey fat-faced dog, your face is fat", but for the most part I wanted to get done delivering papers so I could go home and make a glass of chocolate milk and watch cartoons.

I kept that paper route for a few years. When I got older, I eventually decided to work in a grocery store, so I gave up the paper route. At that grocery store, I was forced to deal with people on a regular basis. Can you put the meat in separate bags? Can you carry that to my car? Other people just demanded things. Paper and plastic. Hurry up, I have to go home. Whenever I tried to get away for a minute, someone would call me back. There is always work to be done at a grocery store.

Every once in a while I would walk around my old neighborhood after a day at the grocery store. I would pass the fat-faced dog's house. When it was nice out, he'd be there on the porch. Even though he was older and his face was even fatter, he'd run down the stairs to try and get me. And I would occassionally walk over to pet him on his fat head. He was a good dog.

Where I was when they captured Saddam

I guess all the OBL news has had me wondering about how people are supposed to feel when big things happen. I guess that's the big debate going on right about now. Should people be wooting and burning stuff in the street, or should they be chilling and praying to their God and whatnot? To me, the reaction doesn't really matter. People will find something to be pissed off about whatever the outcome may be. That be what makes people, people? Am I right? (I'm not apologizing for any of the stupidity found in the first few sentences of this blog, k?) (I understand there are grammatical errors, but they are used to make a point) (I'm not sure what the point is though, because I am an idiot). People separate themselves from lessers by being able to find the ability to get pissed off about basically whatever they want. I know people who hate American Idol. Other people seem to love it. If a TV show is going to bring out a debate, I guess a military-ordered death will as well. "So react how you want, just don't react around me"-Martin Luther King.

That is not really a Martin Luther King quote, it is a slight variation of a lyric found in a Bad Religion song.

I didn't riot at the OBL news, but I didn't boohoo none neither. My best friend growing up was a pacifist labrador retriever, but all the same I'm totes happy that OBL is no longer around. Perhaps contradictory, but I'm sure Ladybug would understand.


I tried to remember if the capturing of Saddam caused a similar reaction. Did Phillies and Mets fans hug in the streets? Did college campuses go bonkers? I have no idea. I heard about the Saddam news when I was laying face down on the carpet in Maguire's living room in Albany. Me and Jones visited him for some crappy party, and then crashed at Maguire's new apartment. The apartment was pretty boring and I think Maguire was trying to save money so he didn't let us turn the heat on, even though I remember his apartment was real cold. Jones called the couch, which was fine, because I have no problem sleeping on a floor. I remember Maguire's carpet smelling really good. There were lots of jokes about how good the carpet smelled. Most of them were inappropriate. But anyway, we drank a lot then passed out in our designated pass-out space. Maguire in his bed, Jones on the couch, me on the floor. Since it was so cold, Jones took down Maguire's curtains to use as blankets at some point in the night.

I remember waking up to Maguire freaking out. Maguire is military, and he ran in the room to turn on his television. Jones was excited. I wasn't excited, I was really hung over and cold. We watched the news programs all morning, and Maguire was confident that we had won. It was cool joining in on his winning attitude, but I was still pretty hungover. We probably made fun of Jones for the rest of the morning and then found greasy food somewhere.