3 September

Today has been the first fully bad weather day. A sun ray or two may have hit my head, but it was just coincidence. It’s been dark, cloudy, and rainy all day. It seemed a good day to go furniture shopping. I’ve been thinking about La Perla like this: I have taken steps to get the big jobs done, but these big jobs are improvements only. There are still things needed to make La Perla – the middle unit especially – livable: a bed for example. So that’s where I went. I collated all my furniture notes, compared prices and quality of the four places I’ve visited, and decided Ikea had most of the best stuff.

I’ll skip the details of what I got where, but, suffice it to say that I spent 4 hours at Ikea. I closed the place down. Seriously. An employee had to unlock the door to let me out! I may be Swedish, but I don’t love Ikea that much! It just takes that long. Ironically, I knew what I wanted more or less when I walked in and expected it would take about an hour – silly me! For each department I had to locate a free salesperson (and it was almost as crowded as last Sunday) Then I had to show them what I wanted and to make choices about the size, color, etc. Obviously this was slower in Italian. Then they had to enter it all in the computer (and their software made my 1990 Mac Classic SE 30 look fast). Then there was some issue about some items being in the central store (probably hidden in a hollow mountain near Bern) or at the local store. That required about an hour of finagling – which, I believe, is an international word.

My fifth department salesperson was Christel. It was like getting out of the shower and opening the window on a winter’s day or pulling out of a traffic jam onto an open freeway: she spoke German!!! And I don’t mean Schwitzerdeooutch, I mean real hard-core Queen’s German. I was so excited! We made decisions about 3 beds in about 1/4 the time it took for one 90 franc desk. It felt so good I threw in a couple guardaroba/armadio thingees too! They don’t have closets here so you have to get a big piece of furniture instead. I’m not sure exactly what the English word is. I think it may be wardrobes, but other that entrances to Narnia, I’m not really sure what they are – just like hedgerows, pheasants or copses. Some British thing. And we all know how I feel about British things.

Due to the hang up with the different sources for some items, Christel took me to see Kai. I knew something was weird straightaway but I wasn’t sure what. When people speak Italian to me, I understand maybe 75% but when they speak with each other, I understand about 10%. But here I was following them effortlessly. Then I realized it: they were speaking perfect high German with each other and I could understand everything! Christel left and as Kai was settling my accounts we got to talking. He told me how he had moved from Germany to southern Spain and then Mallorca and now here with his Argentinian wife and kids. I started looking around for the camera because it seemed like senseless and unmotivated exposition and I was wondering when the plot payoff would come. Germans aren’t this forthcoming, but he clearly was German. He asked me why I was buying up half of Ikea and I told him about La Perla. We agreed that Ticino was the perfect blending of Northern and Southern Europe and that we enjoyed it’s diversity and how people really do come together. It’s easier when the common culture is Italian – which is, of course, empirically better than most cultures and easier to sell than mainstream Americana. Kai was quite friendly and helpful.

Then once I had all 38 items entered (keep in mind that an Ikea desk is comprised of a plank and two bases, etc.), I took my list to the kasse. I figured she would freak out but she kept her composure. In a fit of efficiency, the folks at Ikea had put a barcode at the bottom of my printed out list. She scanned that like I was actually buying real stuff. She said a bunch of stuff in Italian and I smiled and said “si, grazie.” Then I stuck my little card in the little slot and presto! Rifuta??? What? OK, this was bad. The kassedonna told me to go to customer service or back upstairs. I glanced at the long line and howling kids swinging off strollers at customer service and tried to find my way through the Ikea maze back to Kai. But he was gone. I eventually found Christel and she said they could charge me 30% down and bill me the rest. She redid the list and I went back downstairs.

I obediently cut back in line and again rifuta!! The kassadonna wasn’t pleased. Nor was I. Nor were those in the growing line who eventually started taking items off the conveyor belt as kassadonna started calling everyone over on the PA. I felt like a superstar. Or maybe more like one of those hated ones like Paris Hilton. Yeah, for the first time in my life, I felt just like Paris Hilton. I think. Who is Paris Hilton exactly? Did I feel like OJ Simpson? Anyway, I finally just gave up and used my American visa card. See, when push comes to shove, it still comes down to the almighty dollar. Even eight years of tyranny and imperialism can’t change that. God Bless #1.

Half an hour later the customer service guy had worked his magic and assured me all my stuff would come on the same day from the same truck – whenever that might be! During the course of the afternoon it became clear to me that only I can supervise and ensure the delivery, moving, and building of the 38 subparts of the furniture I ordered. Guess who’s coming back to Ticino?

As I left, I couldn’t tell who wanted to leave more, the woman ending her shift or me. I had my shrink-wrapped pillow I picked up somewhere on the way still stuck under my arm and I told her I was ready to use it after a day at Ikea.

Luckily Marianne was about an hour late with dinner so I made it early and got in a bocalino of fritz and a crash course in competing satellite dish offerings from Wälle before another amazing meal of some sort of Peruvian cornbread casserole. Then we played the dice game with no name. Mauro calls it gioco de dadi (game of dice) and Marianne calls it 10,000. I think its kind of like Mormor’s (my mothers mother) card game she called Casin – even though no one in the world has ever heard of it. Even though I had watched tons of people play it over the years, this was my virgin tour. I had some 8000 points when Wälle won. I still had a turn and asked Wälle if he was scared and he laughed at me. Somehow, with extensive coaching, I managed to roll some 2500 points on my last turn and come from behind to win. Unfortunately, I only got a bronze medal on my sophomore attempt and that’s not impressive when there are only four players.