It is funny how the smallest of thing
s can lead me into difficulties. My wife and I decided to give our youngest son a bedroom makeover. He is now nine so we let him choose what he wanted to do. A trip to Ikea identified that he wanted a raised bed and a sofa bed to go under it so that his friends could have sleep overs. We knew the boxes were going to be large so we took two cars my large four wheel drive and my wife’s estate car. The trip was very pleasant, we took a boy each so had no arguing on the trip there. They were pleased to be re-united so mucked about in the shop but were not a nuisance to other shoppers so we gave them a bit of free reign.
We had carefully measured the size of the bed and sofa on a previous trip so was quietly confident that the two vehicles would be sufficient. Of course our son was not interested in waiting until a delivery to be organised so it all had to fit. This all sounds very calm until we arrived at the warehouse to pick up the boxes, oh dear the sofa looked huge, even though it was partly dissembled. I took out my 1Pear and coached myself into remaining clam. In fact I must have been calmer than usual as normally I would not have thought to manage the situation. We decided that the sofa must fit as the dimensions we had seen on the display would fit. We decided to see how big the bed parcel was. Ahh, it was huge, my anxiety flew upwards, and was not helped by the boys mucking about with the trolleys we were trying to load up. I took time, I slowly used the 1Pear and thought through what was the best solution. My heart rate slowly reduced but before I could come up with an answer my wife suggested that Ikea have tape measures, why not send me and one son out to the two cars and measure up to see if they fitted.
Boxes duly measured we went out to the cars. I had been using my 1Pear continuously and I was in full “solution finding mode”. A measure up of my car with the seats down and my wife’s showed the bed would not fit. This is where my anxiety would normally fly into melt down and I would get really angry with myself for putting us in this situation. But no, I was calm and there had to be a way. I juggled with the front seats and tried to fit the two boxes that made up the bed into different cars but nothing worked. I stood looking at the two cars and it suddenly occurred to me. My car has a split rear tailgate and the spare wheel is attached to the back of the car. With the sofa in my wife’s car and the bed poking out the top of the rear tailgate we could carry everything. In fact the spare wheel acted as a rest for the two huge boxes and made it safe to drive.
We returned to my waiting wife and other son and paid for the goods. The usual fun loading huge heavy boxes but it all fitted and what was a simple challenge that would normally have lead to a very bad day for the whole family was a huge success. It seems strange to think that a set of worry beads could have saved so much emotional pain for us, but that is the only explanation.
Kevin
The English Worry Bead Co
www.englishworrybeads.uk
