Because today was a day the Lord hath made, I chose to celebrate his gift of mankind on this planet by going to Ikea before they even opened. This was after I had just gone to another Ikea Friday night, an event so frustrating in each aspect I cannot begin to document it in print, and also after my phone counted up twenty-seven phone calls to Ikea in the course of 5 days. That is 5 phone calls for each day, plus two just for fun.
But today, today would be different, I decided. So I left the house at 9:15am on a Sunday and drove 45 miles with McDonalds coffee and without any knowledge of what was about to occur in my life.
The great causation of all this was very simple: I had decided to trade in two armchairs for one chaise lounge. I made this decision after great counsel from my friends, careful plotting and diagramming with scale cut outs of my living room and possible furniture, and after flipping through the entire Ikea 2009 catalog roughly 43 times each day for the past 6 months. Red chaise lounge. There is no stopping me now. We are doing this. I am doing this.
Cut to this morning, I drive to Ikea by myself, I storm up to the living room section by myself, I choose the chaise and accompanying ottoman by myself. I purchase them for hundreds of dollars each (“Half a thousand!” I declared at checkout) by myself. I go to the pick up center, I pick up my furniture, I take them outside and I, in all respects to the definition of the word, cram them into my Audi A4 sedan.
A 5-foot long chaise lounge and matching oversized ottoman. Weighing a combined 82 pounds.
I arrived at Ikea at 10am, and I left at noon. I spent roughly 30 minutes inside the store shopping and OH I DON’T KNOW HOW ELSE LONG forcing my car to make sweet love to this chaise lounge and then invite it to stay overnight. Fingernails are broken in this quest as with any good one-night stand, and at one point my wrist is slammed in the car door. It bruises and I cry and people stare then walk away. The trunk comes within one inch of closing and I tie it down with the complimentary string Ikea has left on the curb. Thank you, Ikea. At this point it is clear to me that I have forgotten deodorant today, along with my brains.
I drive this all home in my car, I get home and I remember one key detail: I live on the second floor, right after a spiraling 180 degree turn marking a 90 degree angle. So here is what I do: I lift a 71 pound chaise lounge out of my car and walk it up my stairs. By myself.
I do this for 6 steps, and then I try to turn the thing up the staircase. It is over my head on the diagonal, then the head of the chaise lodges itself against the carpeted stairs. Then I drop the other side to inspect what just happened. Then the side I’ve just lowered becomes stuck under the banister. I’m trapped between an unmoving chaise and the corner.
So then what happened will be what they write on my tombstone, provided someone is around to care that my life is ever immortalized: “Sarah got her chaise lounge stuck on the staircase, so she just sat down.”
I just sat down on the stairs, stuck in the corner, for a good ten minutes or so. I laid my head back on the wall, I stretched out my legs, and caught my breath. I sat there wavering between feeling sorry for myself and talking myself into getting up and dreaming of a grilled cheese sandwich, as any great woman has done at one time or another. Then I texted my neighbor Cathleen and said essentially, “Hey what are you doing right now? Can you come out into the hallway?”
When she didn’t reply and I realized my brow was no longer dripping hot sweat into my eyes, I decided to give this one more try. I stood up and gripped the side of this 71 pound chaise lounge and with my one free leg, I pushed down on the end of the chaise stuck under the banister. Then I pulled the top up while in a full split position, the chaise gave way and magically like an asshole slid itself up the carpeted stairs to the landing. I laid on my stomach holding the chaise up with one hand while I texted Cathleen with the other, “Nevermind!”
The how and why this relates to feminism may have alluded you at this point, but if you’re starting to get any ideas let me make it that much clearer: This post isn’t about how women can do it all. It isn’t about how capable I am, or how I can do the splits or how I don’t need a man to dislodge a 71 pound chaise lounge from my staircase. You were close, but that isn’t the point. Of course I know I can do these things. Of course I know I am capable. Of course, of course, I know that it’s possible for any woman to any job any man has ever done, at any time, for any reason. Independence approves of me just fine, thank you.
The point is women can do many things, but there are many things I am going to choose not to do. For the rest of my life, whenever someone rolls their eyes at me declaring my need for a man to carry my furniture, I will explain to them the greatest form of feminism is choice. My choice is to find a man who can carry a chaise lounge, and who will say to me, “Sarah, don’t buy that. You are going to hate it in your house.”
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