Will and I did everything we could to avoid having to go to IKEA.  We don’t have anything against IKEA.  In fact we really like IKEA.  But IKEA? Is twenty miles away and involves a trip over an icy bridge in icy weather and getting home any furniture purchased there would involve the borrowing of a truck and then trying to drive that truck over an icy bridge in icy weather.  That wasn’t a fun idea to Will or I.  So we tried.  We tried really really hard to avoid having to go to IKEA to get the futon for Will’s Dad and Will’s Dad’s Girlfriend.

Let me just say, for the record, that neither Will’s Dad nor Will’s Dad’s Girlfriend (who will henceforth be referred to as B because “Will’s Dad’s Girlfriend” is just too much typing) asked us to buy them something to sleep on.  Will’s Dad even told us not to buy anything.  They know money is tight right now.  But we were not about to say Hi!  Here’s our couch–you two can arm wrestle over who gets to sleep on it and who gets to sleep on an old poky futon mattress on the floor! Have fun!  Not when this was B’s first trip out here and when we didn’t know exactly how long they’d be here.  We just…are not that rude.  We also know that we could have gotten them an air mattress and they wouldn’t have complained, but Will’s Dad has problems with his spine, his hips and his knees.  Trying to get up from an air mattress (and getting down to it) would probably cause him quite a bit of pain.  So, yeah.  We’re being nice.  And getting extra seating for the living room!

So back to the story.

We were so desperate to avoid having to drive all the way over to IKEA that we drove around for almost SIX HOURS yesterday trying to find an affordable futon or pull out couch.  We drove all over Beaverton, Aloha, Tigard and Hillsboro trying to find an affordable option.  We went to no less than ten furniture stores–including a Goodwill that was so heinous that Will probably won’t ever set foot in a thrift store again– and we found only one option that we liked.  At Big Lots.  And when we went back to buy the futon from Big Lots? They were out of the nice sturdy frame that was our whole reason for choosing it.

We found quite a few futons that were nice enough, but they were either too expensive or folded out into something that was too skinny even for me to sleep on and Will’s Dad and B? Well, they are slightly larger than I am….by a lot.

We finally gave up at about 4:30 because Will had to be at work at 5.

Today we woke up and decided to just bite the bullet and go to IKEA.  We’d looked online and didn’t see much of anything but we wanted to be able to say that we had at least tried every available option that we could think of, so, at about 1, we climbed into the Subaru and drove across the icy bridge in icy weather.  We parked, went into the store, rode up the escalator to the show room, walked past the first kitchen display and there was the most perfect futon ever created.  Oh my god this thing is so comfortable I would almost rather that it be Will’s and my new bed than a guest futon. It folded out into a bed that would be wide enough for Will’s Dad and B and was nice enough to fold up into an extra couch for the living room and it was sixty dollars cheaper than anything else we had considered buying yesterday.

Six hours yesterday.  Five minutes today.  It so just figures.