LEFT-overs

A couple months ago, we ordered Tai a table and four chairs for his new playroom.  Once the room was all done, Tai and Minh set to work assembling the furniture.  Adorably, they sat together on the living room floor and put together the table and three chairs, but the fourth chair could not be fully assembled, because it came with two front left legs (and no right right leg).  Luckily, Tai accepted the explanation that we needed to get a different part before we could use the blue chair.  Being just one kid, he was happy to have just the three chairs for a while.

I went online to the company's handy-dandy replacement part ordering website and ordered up a front-right-blue chair leg.  I triple checked the part number and hit submit.  Within a week, a package arrived.  It was another left leg.

So this time I called and spoke to a real person and explained which part we needed and gave her the part number.  Despite my being certain what is left and what is right, she suggested that I was mixing up parts 11 and 12 and decided to go ahead and send me both, just in case.  Within a week, another package arrived--this time containing both a left and a right leg.  So we now have one complete blue chair and two extra left legs.       

Then, a couple weeks ago, we made our first pilgrimage to the Promised Land of Inexpensive Furniture (IKEA) and bought, among other things, this for the playroom.  Finally, we thought, the playroom will be complete.  Not so.  The very first box Minh opened up, containing the centerpiece of the vast "storage system," included -- are you ready for it? -- two left walls.  No joke.  

After talking with the national IKEA customer service center, and the local store, Minh got them to agree to send us the missing part (originally they wanted us to drive our butts 1.5 hours to New Haven to pick it up).  Within a week, a package arrived.  Do I have to tell you what was in it?  Of course, it was another left-hand wall.  So, Minh called them back and explained the (still comical at this point) problem and they apologized and rush-ordered us another delivery.  This time, the package arrived in just 3 days.  Another left-hand wall.  

Seriously.  I could not make this up if I tried.

We have a call in to IKEA and are waiting to hear back.  We can only hope that they'll get it right this time.  And quickly.  If you know how Minh nests before babies arrive, you know it's killing him that we cannot finish organizing the playroom because of this one missing piece.   

Our house is now littered with extraneous left-hand parts.  If this keeps up much longer, we'll be ready to open our own children's furniture store.