IKEA

Injured Knee, Embarrassing Accident

As I may have mentioned before, my family is a big fan of IKEA, especially my oldest son. We love getting up on a Saturday and making the long drive to make the 99 cent breakfast served before 11am. Usually my oldest has already eaten breakfast, so we get him as side of bacon, his favorite meat (I know not the healthiest food, but we don't go everyday.) Of course, I prefer the lunches with Swedish meat balls and Swedish apple cake, washed down with some sweet, sweet ligonberry juice! The dining experience helps propel IKEA to the Disney World of furniture shopping, at least to us.

This past Saturday we made our way to IKEA and had a nice breakfast. After looking around for a bit we discovered a nice buffet of free samples of Swedish cookies, chocolate, cheese, and more. I really like the Rasberry cookies and decided to go by some from the small grocery area. I noticed a bottle of Flädersaft, or elderberry flower syrup for you non-Europeans, and thought that I should try this nectar someday, but at first passed it up.

I saw some Europeans buying some Flädersaft and I asked them how it tasted. They kindly opened a bottle and let me sniff. It smelled like sweet, sweet nectar (which it is; very satisfying summer drink, like a mixture of a really good white grape with a hint of lime.) I was sold, and went back to grab a bottle. The nice European couple noticed that a different bottle of theirs had a broken seal and were going to get another, so I handed them mine since they had been so kind. And that is when it happened.

I was wearing flip-flops (aka thongs, and yes I've been warned of the dangers) and I lunged back to get a new bottle of Flädersaft, and the tip of my left flip-flop caught the mat in front of a freezer. I went flying with my arm taking out a display of coffee (thank goodness it wasn't jars of ligonberry jam) and I went crashing to the floor. Most of you know that I am not a small man, so the momentum was of course very great. I quickly got to my feet and went back to my place in line.

Everyone asked if I was alright, and I responded that I was just embarrassed, not noticing the blood until the clerk pointed it out. My fall had taken a chunk from my big toe, put two canyon sized gouges on top of my foot, and the piece of napkin stuck to my knee was actually my epidermis. The clerk persuaded me to stay until the security personnel could bring me some bandages, and my good wife had Neosporin with her. (Please let me know if you ever see a recording of my crash landing on YouTube.)

So was it worth it? Yeah, I love my sweet nectar!