Joanie CD
08-11-2024, 05:38 PM
Last weekend my wife and I went to IKEA for some new furniture for our soon-to-be guest room (formerly our den/gameroom). She was fine with me dressing, so it was on! I dressed simply in a green striped cotton top with some crocheted accents and blue denim capris, and wore my comfy Teva sandals. Of course I put on some minimal coverage makeup, my clip-on hoop earrings, and a low-key necklace. In other words, I pretty much blended in with all the GGs, at least in terms of clothes. My wife wore a similar, but not matching (that would be weird) outfit. The store was a little over 2 hours from home, on the outskirts of Charlotte, NC. I don't feel like I pass that well, but in my experience, people are mostly accepting if you aren't trying to be outrageous.
We left in time to get to the store a little after it opened. We stopped at a rest area along the way where we both used the ladies' room. When we got to the store, we both hit the ladies' room again before shopping. Two hours later, we checked out with about 6 long and somewhat heavy flat-packs, plus a shopping bag full of the inevitable impulse buys. I wheeled our stuff out to the loading doc, and my wife went to get our little pickup truck. I had hoped to load directly from the IKEA cart to the truck, but they have a barrier, I guess to keep people from taking their carts, so it's about 3-4 feet from the cart to our truck. I started man-handling (woman-handling?) the first box when a nice IKEA employee asked me if I needed help, and I said in my best Joanie voice "That would be wonderful". He loaded the 6 boxes and we were on our way. At this point it's lunch time, so we decided to stop at a nearby Mexican restaurant. It was a nice, fairly upscale place. When the waiter came over, he said "What would you ladies like to drink?". We had cocktails and a nice lunch, and of course I used the ladies' once again.
On the way home, there was one more stop at a rest area, and then we got home mid-afternoon with no problems. My wife said, as she has told me before, she forgets that I'm wearing womens' clothes -- she's just out with me. I love her so much for that.
All in all, an easy and fun excursion. The picture is just before the checkout, where you have to grab your boxes from the warehouse area.
342637
We left in time to get to the store a little after it opened. We stopped at a rest area along the way where we both used the ladies' room. When we got to the store, we both hit the ladies' room again before shopping. Two hours later, we checked out with about 6 long and somewhat heavy flat-packs, plus a shopping bag full of the inevitable impulse buys. I wheeled our stuff out to the loading doc, and my wife went to get our little pickup truck. I had hoped to load directly from the IKEA cart to the truck, but they have a barrier, I guess to keep people from taking their carts, so it's about 3-4 feet from the cart to our truck. I started man-handling (woman-handling?) the first box when a nice IKEA employee asked me if I needed help, and I said in my best Joanie voice "That would be wonderful". He loaded the 6 boxes and we were on our way. At this point it's lunch time, so we decided to stop at a nearby Mexican restaurant. It was a nice, fairly upscale place. When the waiter came over, he said "What would you ladies like to drink?". We had cocktails and a nice lunch, and of course I used the ladies' once again.
On the way home, there was one more stop at a rest area, and then we got home mid-afternoon with no problems. My wife said, as she has told me before, she forgets that I'm wearing womens' clothes -- she's just out with me. I love her so much for that.
All in all, an easy and fun excursion. The picture is just before the checkout, where you have to grab your boxes from the warehouse area.
342637