By Molly Snyder Senior Writer Published Aug 19, 2006 at 6:20 PM

I went to IKEA today for the sixth or seventh time in my life. We usually go to the one in Schaumburg, Ill., but I have also hit the San Francisco and Atlanta IKEA while visiting friends and family. Before today, I was just as gung-ho as the next guy, loving the Euro emporium down to the very last umlaut.

But today was different. I think it was because we wanted to buy large pieces of furniture, instead of spontaneously tossing funsy-shaped gadgets and bags of cheap tea lights into our cart. Prior to this trip, I hadn't gone on a shopper's mission; rather, I went simply to enjoy the IKEA experience, with a few things in mind that I may or may not buy. (Although I did go just to buy a bunch of those colorful circle rugs once.)

Trying to buy furniture is a full-blown pain in the booty. After mulling over a myriad of bunkbeds and mattresses, we picked our favorites, and then diligently wrote down the item numbers so we would be able to find them in the self-serve furniture section downstairs. (Might I add the bunkbeds are for my boys, not for me and my husband. Phew.)

Then we went to the main floor to find our items, but after wandering around with a cart and a dolly for a while, realized they were sold out of the bunks, and the mattresses were not in the aisle that the computer said that they were.

The staff -- although bubbly in a way only someone who has never paid a heating bill can be -- was not particularly helpful.

We had already been disappointed by the fact they were sold out of pee-proof mattress pads and most of the flat twin sheets (always plenty of fitted -- what is that?), so by the time we got to the main floor to find our large items, we were IKEAed out.

Perhaps it was the glut of back-to-school shoppers that made things run less smoothly this time. Who knows. I did still manage to walk out with a cart full of incidentals, including the infamous bag of tea lights.


Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.

Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.