If you have been a loyal reader, you know how desperate Lauren and I have been for a chair for our living room. If you don't know what I'm referring to, first read this. Well, lordy be, we finally have a chair! But let me tell you, it was no cake walk.

'Twas a Saturday afternoon, 'round 4pm when we embarked on the F train to Red Hook, Brooklyn. From there, we transferred to a bus, and our excitement grew with every passing block. You see, for us, Ikea is mecca. And we make a yearly pilgrimage to our holy land for special things like kitchen trinkets, and sometimes furniture.

Happily we sat, flopped, and lounged in chair after chair on the display floor before settling on the wonderfully plush chair of our dreams. We also fought for the last cover of a certain style. We were unstoppable. I'm pretty sure I remember us high-fiving at this point.

After paying, we dropped off our furniture pick up form, and went to indulge in soda beverages and giant, salty soft pretzels, and paid a grand total of $4. We sat and gushed of our love for Ikea. 'Isn't it wonderful?' I said to Lauren. 'A chair and cheap, tasty treats while we wait! Glorious!'

Shortly after, the euphoria wore off and the cold, stark reality of Ikea hell set in.

They brought our chair out, but the cover we fought for had been sold. So then we waited again in the exchange line, but they only had a leaf patterned cover in exchange, and that's ugly so we decided to take the chair naked.

Wondering how we got it back to our apartment? This was probably our biggest mistake. First, we thought about renting a U-Haul. But the wait was 45 minutes, and we'd have to return it which would take hours, and at this point, we had already invested two hours of our night into this trip. And delivery was $100 so that was out. A cab, we thought!

Down at ground level, we were approached by a man in a leather jacket and he offered us a ride for $65 dollars. 'Hell no!' we scoffed. Then, another man approached us, who turned out to be what can only be described as the cabbie pimp. He bartered with us and I got him down to $50 +tip. And we were sent with Leather Jacket who was a little annoyed.

It was pretty uncomfortable since we had turned this guy down once already, and as we followed him down a darkened street in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Lauren and I started to have doubts; the secret kind where we just looked at one another with confused and worried expressions. We became especially concerned when we realized he was leading us to a Lincoln Town car and not a yellow cab. Having no clear other options (I mean, the dude had our chair!), we got in the car, which smelled horrendous, and began our return trip.

We hit true rock bottom back at our apartment, after literally rolling the box end over end up the stairs with the help of a friendly, (albeit stoned? neighbor, we realized that without the cover, we didn't have directions to put the thing together. The cherry on top of a poop sundae.