Portland is all aflutter over the grand opening of a new Ikea store. The anticipation has been so great that I actually first heard Ikea was opening a store in Portland when I was back attending seminary in St. Louis a few years ago. The opening this week came complete with traffic jams and television news helicopters competing for air space with planes landing at PDX (next to where Ikea is located).

We went tonight in search of a small sofa for my study. Ikea is known for inexpensive furniture and we found just what we were looking for after dropping the kids off in Ikea’s Disneyland-like play area. Too bad we’d already eaten dinner. Ikea’s own restaurant featured a salmon dinner for under six bucks.

But what did we think of the place? “If there is a fire we’re all going to die,” said my wife Liz as we made our way through crowds that you’d expect to find at a rock concert and not a discount furniture store. Don’t trust the exit signs. Ikea’s exit signs force you to walk through every single department of the store before finally depositing you in a check-out lane. It felt like we wandered endlessly and for a few minutes I wondered if we'd ever find Frances and Katherine again or if the play area was just part of an elaborate plot to kidnap our children so they could be raised as new Ikea employees. A store clerk told us she’d been lost for several minutes as she tried to find her way back to her post. There were enough police outside to direct crowds and traffic control (which really actually seemed mild on the outside) that you would have thought a major police action was taking place.

Was it all worth it? I’ll let you know after the dogs and I get comfortable on our new couch. Hugo and Hazel are second class citizens around here and only get to lounge in my study, the kitchen area and our backyard…but at least they’ll get to sleep now on a new Ikea mini-sofa.