Wednesday, March 23, 2005

The blue and yellow mist descends once again…….

Sort of a clue there, then.

It’s a recipe for a heart attack, or Viking GBH or even Scandinavian Genocide – and goes something like this…

Ingredients –
One phone.
One Broadband connected p.c.
One grumpy old man.
One goosed and dripping mixer tap – made in Sweden.
Eight million Swedish sadists.
A dollop of fast-evaporating patience.
One big lump hammer.


Method –
Dial number of your local IKEA furniture store.
Wait for automated instructions.
Press button 1
Press button 3
Press button 1
Press button 2
Press button 1
Vait for operator.
Explain that your ‘Stockvik’ mixer tap is dribbling –and that you need a new tap washer.
Operator suggests you bring the mixer tap into the store for inspection.
Sprinkle liberal amounts of expletives throughout as you explain it is attached to 15 miles of copper plumbing in your house.
Carefully, ever so carefully take a firm hold of handset and smash it into hundreds and thousands of pieces courtesy of the big lump hammer..

Try p.c.
Log onto www.ikea.co.uk
Select oxymoronic ‘IKEA Help Centre’ tab from menu
Startlingly scary pop-up of scarily animated ‘Anna’ the virtual vonder viking pops up…
Oh God -
She's here to help me.
The first question from Anna zips onto the screen.
"Hello, can I help you?"
Well that is and easy one to start with....
'Of course you can't - you're IKEA'
I type 'Seals' into box
Anna replies "I know people love animals, but I'm here just to talk about IKEA. "
(She really does, honest! - try it yourself)
Type more expansive version of problem into box.
Wait.
Anna the techno-vonderkind from Svaden cannot help.
She advises that IKEA don’t do washers.
"Vee don’t haff any vashers…. Zee mixer unit ‘Stockvik’ cannot be taken apart – you vill haff to zrow it avay…
Maybe you cut try buying und new mixer tap at Bee und Kuuuw?



So there you have it, instead of spending 4 pence on a new rubber washer, Alfie is about to invest around £45 in a new mixer tap. Why? Because my favourite Swedish export insist there is no ‘eff’ in washers – and definitely none in IKEA.

Thanks Anna, thanks very, very much…..

UPDATE, UPDATE: What am I talking about?
Just got back from B'ndQ ..... Slightly underestimated budget for mixer taps..... £45 should in fact read £95 - and rising..... Good bloody grief.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hear that the IKEA help line/call centre is moving to Mumbai. ;-)

Mosher said...

Errrr... find a mate who's a plumber? Or knows one? Or something? Worked for me.

Also - never buy anything ever from Ikea ever ever ever. Except maybe those little hot dogs. They're quite nice.

Red Fred said...

You tink you haf twoubles wif Anna at IKEA?

No way Baby! Try getting
British Terror-com to admit they done you wrong.

THAT'S Class A1 Sadists Time.
Yep.

Anonymous said...

"Life's a bitch, and then you die"

:-)

Elspeth said...

Seeing as my nearest Ikea is over 2hrs away, no way am I risking buying ought from them!

Mike said...

I could say it serves yourself right for buying anything from IKEA, but that would be cruel. Just look on the bright side at least you avoided the horror of the never ending queue at the check out just to buy a 50p washer.

Then the nightmare of trying to get out of the Gemini estate. I presume you are talking about the Warrington branch? Having said that things have improved since the Gemini estate got it's onw new junction on the M62.

Mike said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Nope... still can't understand why anyone would want to shop at IKEA. Am I missing something?

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