Adventures with IKEA

Because what's worse than assembling furniture?

Assembling IKEA furniture.

"You know Joey, you don't have to help me assemble it," Mai told him as the pair hauled a large and quite dense box out of the back of his pickup truck, an beat up car that perpetually seemed to be on its last legs.

"I've got nothing to do today, so why not?" Joey attempted to shrug, his hands underneath the box. "But holy crap Mai, why do you need a new theater system thingymabober? What's wrong with your old one?"

"Too much stress—watch it it's tipping on my side! Anyways, the weight broke some of the sides, so I'm getting a new one."

"From IKEA."

"Oh stop groaning, you got to eat Swedish meatballs."

" Okay, so the meatballs were delicious, but we spent what, three hours trying to find our way around?"

"I think that's an over exaggeration."

"They should make some sort of survival movie based on this place," he grunted as the two of them worked the box through the door to her condominium building, to the elevator. Her condo wasn't too high up, only on the third floor, but to haul the box up three flights of stairs was madness.

"Maybe I should have hired those two hunky looking Swedish guys to help me instead," she teased.

"Way to take the knife and twist it."

After four tries to wedge the box into the elevator, and shooting down Joey's idea to build a crane and pulley to haul it up that way, Mai and Joey found themselves standing awkwardly, the box separating them.

"You're buying dinner tonight, right?" He asked, flopped across the box and flashing Mai what Tea had called "the world's biggest puppy-dog eyes" (she had also warned Mai to not cave into them as well)

"Only if you're a good boy and besides, didn't you just tell me that you were helping because you had nothing else to do?"

"Uh. . ." Mai had to repress a giggle as Joey's mind went utterly blank as he struggled to come up with a decent enough excuse for said statement.

"I'm kidding!" she finally laughed. "Of course I'll buy. Chinese or pizza?"

"Don't matter to me," he said, watching as the elevator doors opened up. "The next question is: how the heck are we gonna get this thing out the door?"

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"Okay, so on the count of three-"

"Wait are we saying "one, two three" or on three?"

"Does it matter Joey?"

"It does to me."

"Fine, we'll count to three. One, two, three-"

"Argh! I think that was my foot! I think the box is on my foot!"

"Then why didn't you move your foot?"

"Because there's a giant box on it, that's why!"

"Sorry about that."

"Will you kiss it?"

"No, I am not kissing your foot."

There was a pause.

"Mai, my lips hurt-"

"No."

It took them a little over the fifteen minutes with the occasional whine from Joey about his foot, they managed to get the box jammed inside Mai's condominium. Joey let out a whistle as he studied the abode. "Man these are some nice digs," he whistled. The furniture was of high quality, the back wall painted a pale blue hue. Her television and all of her DVDs and knickknacks were on the floor, clearly having already disposed of her damaged home theater kitchen was built next to the living room, a open bar of sorts acting as a window in between where photo frames sat, the pictures filled with happier times. Joey spied one familiar one.

"Hey, that's the one from the beach during the tourney," he began, picking it up. It was all of them together, with Ishizu taking the picture; Seto had elected to not join, despite Mokuba's insistence. They all looked happy, with Yugi and Tea holding hands and Joey's hand about Mai's waist, his other around Serenity's, more than likely in an effort to keep both Tristan and Duke at bay. Rebecca and Rebecca were flashing peace signs while Tristan and Duke were giving each other the bunny ears.

"Yeah I got Tea to make copies," she said smiling, watching Joey's face light up looking at the picture. "So, you're going to help with this or what?" she gently teased, gesturing to the box that was placed in the center of her living room.

"Right, my bad." He reached into his back pocket, flipping open a knife to cut the tape and pull the pieces out. "Let's get started then."

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"Wait Mai, does D5 attach to C7 or-?"

"I thought it attached to A9."

"But there's already something attached to A5."

"What about the other side?"

"It doesn't fit—oh wait, it does. Will you look at that."

"Joey, where that nut I had you hold on to?"

"Um let's see. . .crap."

"You lost it?"

"It's not lost, it's misplaced!"

"Well smarty-pants, if it's misplaced, then where is it?"

Joey looked about his section of the living room, amidst the pieces of particle board, paper and plastic, before proclaiming, "Well it seems to me that said nut has now entered Narnia or another dimension, probably both is more likely."

"How can it be in two places at once?"

"Have you not seen what Christmas lights do?"

Mai sighed, massaging the temples of her forehead. "You do realize that that was the last nut of that kind, right?"

There was a pause.

"Crap."

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In total, it took about four hours, two snack breaks for Joey, twenty minutes wasted on finding said nut Joey had lost, and Mai nearly wanting to pull out her hair not once but thrice, but they did it.

Joey sprawled across Mai's rather plush couch. "Well, that doesn't look too bad," he said, admiring it. His had his head resting on her right thigh.

"It would have been faster if I had hired the two Swedish guys," Mai joked, absently fiddling with a lock of hair. It was surprisingly soft.

"You say that, but you don't actually mean that."

". . .Alright, I'll concede that point there."

"Good, because I'm pretty sure they had the hots for each other anyway. They'd be making googly eyes at each other the whole time, like what Tea and Yugi do every time we all hang out"

"Joey!" She flicked him on the head.

"What? I'm jus' saying. . ."

"I'm going to pretend that this conversation did not exist."

". . .I'm right about the Yugi and Tea part."

"Still pretending I didn't hear that. . ."

"Hey Mai?"

"What?" She answered absently.

"My lips still-."

"No."

This was clearly inspired by the news article about the police being called to someone's house because they thought it was a case of domestic violence.

Turns out it was because they were having problems with assembling the IKEA furniture they had purchased.

True Story.