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I was already pushing my luck with Babe as she had been out all morning visiting my grandmother but I was hoping she could make it one more hour without a complete meltdown.
I drove into the new IKEA parking lot - the kind that looks like an underground but is actually above ground, and started looking for a space. Surprisingly finding a spot was easier than usual - see this post re: the difficulties of parking at IKEA.
I was talking to Babe as I looked for a spot and didn't think much of the object that was sitting in an empty spot until after I had parked and was getting Babe out of the car. As I was grabbing my things to head inside it occurred to me that the mundane object I had hardly raised an eyebrow at was indeed odd and deserved a second look. So still happily chatting with my baby I pushed her through the lot back to the empty spot I had passed.
Yup. There it was. A big black suitcase calmly sitting in the shadows at the edge of a parking stall. I looked around to see if someone was nearby, maybe taking back a cart or loading their trunk with unassembled goods but no one seemed to belong to the bag.
At first I thought that someone had forgotten it but I'm embarrassed to admit that my second thought was more morbid. What if it's a bomb?
As a mommy maybe I shouldn't have stood there thinking over my options, maybe I should have ran. But since I'm new to motherhood I haven't yet fully abandoned rationality for my fight or flight instinct so I was compelled to stand there and decide if I was indeed worried about the bag.
Was it really creepy or was I just paranoid? Would I have thought twice about it in my carefree single days? Yes. It would have occurred to me a year ago that maybe there could, possibly, be a bomb in there but I wouldn't have worried about my own safety enough to do anything about it.
I hated to admit to myself that maybe all the terrorist hype had made its way into my psyche. That maybe I was buying into the fear. That I could actually be afraid of a suitcase in a parking lot on a Canadian Monday afternoon bugged me. It bugged me almost enough to ignore it all together and get on with my shopping. Almost enough.
Now I have a baby. It's not just me. My go-to method of dealing with fear is to pretend I'm not afraid and force myself to do what scares me. Claustrophobic? Take scuba diving lessons. Afraid of heights? Get your ass on the chairlift. Don't much care for big sharks? Strap on a snorkel and dive into the cage. But with Babe to protect it's different. I have to assess danger differently. I can't play the, "how likely is it really?" game anymore. I have to take any threat seriously.
I figured it's not out of the realm of possibility. It wouldn't be my choice target but a large commercial shopping centre, brand new and full of people could be on some sicko's list. I decided that now that I had seen the damn thing I couldn't as a responsible mommy just ignore it.
So I walked back to the entrance where I found a sullen employee begrudgingly stacking shopping carts. I told him that there was a suitcase left by itself at the back of the parkade.
I suppose I thought that he would react to this news in the same fashion that security at the airport would upon hearing this. Clear the area, halt all traffic in a three block radius, call in a bomb squad and detonate the thing.
But he really didn't seem to care. He mumbled something about "dealing with it later" and went back to his carts. Clearly he's not a mother.
Again I just stood there. What if there is no later? I looked around at the unsuspecting shoppers and down at my precious baby and felt...icky. I thought, "If I really think there might be a bomb why am I just standing here like a dumb ass?"
Just then a man came up to the cart guy and told him about the abandoned bag. And again the guy brushed it off. So I got mad and said, "You don't just ignore this. That bag needs to be dealt with now!" In all fairness I don't think the B-word even occurred to the poor guy. I think he just thought what most people would think - someone forgot their suitcase. But when the other customer said he thought it was scary too I felt a little validated and less paranoid.
However with that validation came the realization that I did believe it was dangerous and therefore I had to go. Now I felt too nervous to walk back through the parkade for the car...so I left it. Which was possibly stupid because once outside I realized I had a baby and nowhere to go. And if you've ever been to the IKEA in Richmond you know there's jack around it.
So I walked over to the old, now abandoned IKEA about half a block away (I felt this was a safe distance). Outside the building was a security guard who was keeping an eye on a man who was salvaging metal from the old store.
Considering the bad attitude of the cart guy I was concerned that he would forget about the bag, which meant I couldn't return to get my car. So I wanted to make sure it was being dealt with. I asked the security guard if he worked for IKEA and he said yes. I told him about the scary black suitcase. He looked bemused and said he didn't work for IKEA. "What the?" I told him he should report it. He told me he had no radio and to go screw myself. OK, he didn't tell me to go screw myself with his words...but he did say it with his eyes!
Dammit people!!! I'm trying to save IKEA and all it's ply board furniture wonderfulness!
It wasn't lost on me that just the mention of the word bomb can send Americans into a frenzy but here in Canada I couldn't get anyone to give it a second thought. I guess that's a good thing really.
It occurred to me that I could phone the store and report it but I quickly ruled that out. I once made the very stupid mistake of saying the B-word (in conversation, not as a joke or as a threat) in an American airport and was almost cavity searched by the feds (seriously - they really do freak out about that word). So I wasn't about to be the person who phoned in a bomb threat to the new IKEA. I think a small part of me still believes my name is flagged on a list somewhere. I decided I had done my part and screw them all if they ignored the suitcase.
But now my paranoia...or vigilant guardianship, whichever you prefer, had gotten me into an inconvenient predicament. I couldn't in good conscience go back for the car with Babe and we were too hot, tired and weighed down with stuff to find our way home. And I have no friends in Richmond that I can call on for a perceived bomb threat emergency.
So as ridiculous as this is I felt I really had no other option. I called my mom and asked her to drive into Richmond (about a 45 minute drive in traffic) to hold the baby while I went back into the parkade and retrieved the car. Hey. It was either that or hide Babe behind a dumpster while I went back. I certainly wasn't going to leave her with the useless security guard - he hadn't even been trusted with a walkie-talkie.
She agreed to the madness partly because she's my mom and partly because she's more paranoid than I am. Fifty bucks says she had a burn kit in the car with her just in case we were struck by shrapnel before she arrived.
Now came the shitty part. The nearby Starbucks had nowhere left to sit so I had to sit in the parking lot on a hot day with a cranky baby for 45 minutes while I waited for my mom to arrive. It really did suck and for that I fully believe in my heart that IKEA owes me a sofa.
When my mom arrived we argued over who was going to risk life and limb and go back for the car. I won. When I went back to get the car I saw that the scary suitcase wasn't there anymore. Someone had taken care of it. Guess it was just a forgotten bag after all.
So I went back for my mom and since we were already there and had wasted so much time already...we went shopping in the new IKEA.
I'm still embarrassed that I went through all of that over a suitcase, J certainly thought I was an idiot and you probably do too. But whatever, that's just motherhood.
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