Front Row

Saturday morning, Diana suggested we pack up the kids and head to IKEA.

I snorted, “Yeah, right!” and resumed picking at the lice scabs on my head.

No. Seriously. She wanted us to all go to IKEA together. Now, I love everything about IKEA with the exception of traveling to, visiting and traveling home from their fine establishment. Rather than explain this to Diana, I decided to simply be petulant.

We made it to IKEA with just one mini fight between Di and me. To make things easier, we dropped Elijah off at their kid jail. He could happily color while we dealt with the Sweedes. We made roughly 3.5 feet away when my name was called over the intercom.

“Rick Hamann. Please report to the IKEA kid jail.”

Eli had peed himself and the IKEA jailers weren’t licensed for urine. So I instantly became in charge of both boys so Di could find the perfect particle board for our almost finished basement playroom. This executive decision coincided with Luca’s decision not to spend another second in the cart.

I only lost each of them twice. But eventually we found ourselves standing in the parking lot with our giant pile of boxes. It suddenly dawned on us. We couldn’t fit our giant pile of boxes into the car with the four of us.

The headache that was enjoying amateur status behind my eyeball got called up to the big leagues.

Diana suggested we move Elijah up to the front in his carseat and she’d ride atop the boxes. I resisted this idea, because it goes against every over-parenting instinct in my arsenal. But no amount of Tetris could get our junk to fit any other way.

For the next hour, Eli enjoyed the greatest ride of his life. Up front. He fiddled with every nob he could reach. He got his wish to listen exclusively to Hispanic radio. The temperature was where he liked it, 99.9 degrees.

I, on the other hand, spent the ride in a constant state of panic. I was convinced I would rear end a semi going 150MPH. I combatted this fear by going 7 MPH on the highway. I’m also sure my constant slapping of his hands away from the hazard light button didn’t add to my safety.

At one point a police officer rode up behind us. I was so scared of getting pulled over that I swerved onto a side road, which made us very, very lost. Luckily, Diana had no idea, as she was buried to the head in boxes.

We eventually made it home and I spent the rest of the day cursing those little wrenches the Sweedes include in every kit.