Who's The Daddy: IKEA nearly sank us, but The Boss saved the day
I know time speeds up as you get older but this is ridiculous. It feels like only a fortnight ago that we waved off Daughter #2 at her pre-dawn departure from Manchester Airport to Miami for her second six-month stint working on a Caribbean cruise ship, but she’s due back home in less than a month.
It’s fair to say her time on board, entertaining kids morning, noon and night, has been busy. But it appears she has a taste for life at sea.
First up, there’s no rent. Secondly, all your food from the crew restaurant is free. And last but not least, transportation costs are precisely zero.
Last week Daughter #2 WhatsApped us a guided tour of the absolutely massive ship she works on, that cost the thick end of $2billion to build and holds enough passengers to comfortably fill a League One football ground.
As workplaces go, it’s pretty swish. They’ve even got their own dog who meets and greets passengers and looks like the goodest boy on the high seas.
As things stand, I’d give you the keys to my house if Daughter #2 didn’t sign on for another stint in the Caribbean once this one ends. There’s a statutory period between one tour of duty ending and the next one starting (nine weeks?), but once the nights start to draw in here in chilly old North West England, I suspect Daughter #2 will feel the pull of endless sunshine and balmy temperatures from sometime in November to April 2026.
But while she’s home with us, even though we can’t match the glamour of idyllic Caribbean islands, at least she’ll be comfortable.
The bed she had in her room was, quite frankly, knackered. When she rolled over in her sleep it sounded like a trampoline at the Olympics. So on Monday evening me and The Boss bit the bullet and went to the worst place in the world to buy a replacement - IKEA.
There’s nothing wrong with IKEA stuff, quite the opposite. It’s pretty cheap, lasts for ages and our house is full of it. It’s just that a trip around the store is like an afternoon stuck in Hampton Court Maze. I’m sure the staff know all the shortcuts but to the novice it’s bewildering, then you have to find what you want off the shelves in the warehouse, lug it into your car, drive it home and then build it.
Luckily for yours truly The Boss would win a gold medal if building IKEA furniture was an Olympic sport. I’d watch that, wouldn’t you? It’d be like watching those kids who can do a Rubik’s Cube in 3.05 seconds.
After we’d carted all the boxes up to Daughter #2’s room (the old metal frame was collected by the scrap lads and the flattened mattress driven to the tip that morning) The Boss calmly and methodically built the entire thing with an Allen key and an electric screwdriver the following morning. To a cacky-fingered dunce like yours truly, that counts as a superpower.
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