Say that again??

About two weeks ago, I was crazy and drove from Kennewick to Renton and back in one day just so I could buy two dressers from IKEA. *For those of you "non-Washingtonians" that's about a three and a half hour drive each way...if you're lucky and those no traffic. And c'mon, when is there no traffic in Seattle? Never. I LOVE those dressers, and it was totally worth the trip, so I'm not complaining. I just want to tell you about something hysterical that happened on that trip.

My dear friend, who is really a hero because she volunteered to drive with me so I didn't fall asleep while driving and kill myself and millions of others, wishes to remain nameless in this story. She did give me permission to tell it to you, though, as long as I didn't reveal her true name so let's call her...Batman.

I picked up Batman at about 6:45 a.m. and we hit the road. Traffic on our side of the state was pretty much non-existent at that hour in the morning, so even though I was late picking Batman up, we made pretty good time.

Our first stop of the day was Federal Way to see my mom who had just returned late the night before from Honduras. When we got to my mom's house, my sister was up and working on putting the finishing touches on her garage sale display (we were there Thursday, and her garage sale was Friday / Saturday). I chatted with her for a bit and then headed upstairs to wake up my parents.

Mom came downstairs to visit with us and show us pictures from her trip. After about an hour and a half, it was time for us to continue on our journey to IKEA. We still had to go there, and then we were going north to Redmond to the Microsoft campus where Batman's beautiful, funny, and smart daughter works. Batman loves her daughter, but she kept telling me if we didn't have time we didn't have to go. She could see Batgirl soon. I told Batman she was crazy, and to quit being so darn nice. If we were going as far as Renton, it was pretty much a requirement to see Batgirl. It was only a few minutes extra, and besides, she was forced to sit through the travelogue at my mom's house. (Disclaimer: I enjoyed sitting there looking at the pictures. But I wanted to see them and hear about my mom's trip. Batman was just along for the ride. She had no obligation to be subjected to vacation pictures. She was great, though, and asked a lot of questions and oohed and aahed over the pictures in all the right places. She's a good woman, that Batman.)

So we finally left my mom's house and made it to the IKEA. With surprisingly little trouble, might I add. Unfortunately, in addition to having the bad habit of falling asleep at the wheel, I am also directionally challenged. (Thank goodness for the internet and MapQuest!) My choice of co-captain for this trip was excellent in the keeping-me-awake-so-I-don't-kill-myself-and-millions-of-others department. It was not great in the make-sure-I-don't-get-lost department because Batman suffers from the same directionally challenged affliction I do, though not nearly to the same degree. She, too, MapQuested before I picked her up, so we were set.

When we got to IKEA, we started wandering, following the little arrows on the floor (IKEA was prepared for the likes of us!) around the massive, ginormous store. Amazingly, I found the exact dresser I wanted pretty quickly. Batman found a few things she was looking for as well. Being the good Batmom she is, she got Batgirl some dish towels for her kitchen. She got Batboy some new silverware for "The Dupe" (duplex) where he lives with Batfriend. (Previously unmentioned in this post, Batboy, like his sister, is also smart, funny, and sweet. Batmom and Batdad did a great job with their Batkids!) She also got a new lamp for the Batcave cabin.

We were pretty pleased with our finds, and decided to use one of the shortcuts to the warehouse to avoid unnecessarily subjecting ourselves to more crowded displays. We had everything we wanted and more, we just had to get the dressers from the warehouse.

When we found the display, I was unhappy to see that the sign said the dressers were $299. On the internet, they were advertised for $279. I quickly decided I was buying them no matter what, but vowed to ask the cashier about the price difference. Forty bucks is a decent chunk of change.

Once we got to the checkout area, there were pretty long lines. I scanned the room and found one line that wasn't long at all! There was only one person in it, and she was moving up to the register right then. I couldn't believe my luck! I ALWAYS get stuck in the long line. I have some sort of internal radar that allows me to find the longest line. Or the slowest line. Or, most often, the longest AND slowest line. Yeah, I'm lucky that way.

Guess what? That short line I found? Yeah, it was the longest and slowest, even though there was only one person ahead of me. Apparently, the woman ahead of me had carefully stacked about thirty bazillion small individual items in front of her three large bulky items so I couldn't see them. Oh, and everything was glass or scratchable, so the cashier had to wrap each item individually in paper. Can I pick a line or can I pick a line? Unfortunately, by the time I realized that I had been suckered into this line, about half of the known free world had arrived at checkout at the same time, and I couldn't switch lines because the others were even longer than they had been originally. Batman and I were stuck. She zoomed through self-checkout and then came to stand in line with me, her paid-for purchases in hand.

When I finally got to the front of the line, I asked the sales clerk about the price difference on the dressers. She looked at me and said, "I don't know. I'm going to have to find a manager. This is only my second day on the job." Nice.

So, the hunt for the manager ensues. After about ten minutes, no joke, there has still been no manager located, but we did find two other sales clerks who told my newbie that she could look it up on the internet herself, verify the price difference, and then fill out a form. Then she just needed a manager to come over and sign the form, and type some secret code into the computer so that I could save my $40. Sounds easy, right?

Apparently this was her second day on the job, but her first time using the internet. Batman volunteered to stay with my purchases and sent me along with the newbie clerk to make sure that she did indeed find the right dresser online. As it turns out, the computer with internet access was just a few lanes away from where Batman and I had been standing in our own private hell. I was able to see Batman, but was far enough away that I could not talk to her. So, after about 15 more minutes of slow torture, I pulled out my phone and texted Batman. I texted her the following message: "Sorry!! This is getting ridiculous!"

She read the text, looked up and nodded her head. Batman agreed. I could see it in her face. She then turned away and started working on a reply text message. Batman is also an English teacher, so she too spell checks her texts before she sends them...usually.

Imagine my surprise then, when I received the following message: "Holy bras!!"

When I finally made it back over to Batman and my dressers, where we had to wait for a manager to come over and give me the $40 off, I asked her what she meant by her message. She explained that as she was typing in the message to me, someone else was calling her phone at the same time. She hit send before she proofread and thought she had sent me some random letters. She meant to send me a message that said, "Holy crap!!" I showed her the message, and she burst into laughter. We determined that because she was using the T9 (or word) mode, "crap" and "bras" involve the exact same key combination, so the phone thought she was typing the word bras instead.

Holy bras, indeed.