I have an IKEA story. You do too. We all do. There’s nothing special about mine, except that it happened to me.

So I go to IKEA yesterday, at the Mall Of America, to get a desk. I wend my way through countless other Saturday shoppers (this particular IKEA gets 15000 customers a day, you know) into the heart of a gigantic building that is really too large to be considered a building; more like a complex. It’s larger than my hometown, that much I know. And I find, eventually, the Workspace area, where I choose, with not too much deliberation, a nice new desk at which I will accomplish many accomplishments for at least the next three years. I consult the piece of notebook paper in my back pocket, upon which I’ve made a very rough sketch of my bedroom and its measurements.

I write down the Aisle and Bin number of the desk I’ve chosen and slowly make my way back down to the first floor, walking at a pace somewhere between sluggish and liesurely behind whole families of overweight people. I finally get down to the giant warehouse full of giant shelves which form giant aisles down which I can pilot my giant and oversized shopping cart, and then locate the boxes in which my unassembled desk is located, only to find that at least one of the boxes involved is far too large to ever fit in the backseat of my tiny Nissan.

I was expecting this, so after I wheel my giant cart—now laden with giant boxes full of unassembled desk, through the checkout and fork over my credit card to cover the all-too-reasonable cost of the desk—I steer the cart left towards the Delivery desk, where I wait in line behind people with even larger bundles of unassmbled IKEA Product who would also like it delivered to their homes. Delivery starts at the none-too-reasonable price of $49. When I finally get to the desk, I’m informed that my delivery will cost $62 and the earliest possible day they can deliver it is Monday. I say well, I’m busy all day Monday, how about Tuesday? Which in retrospect was a boneheaded thing to say, because if I’m beginning a graduate program that entails a week’s orientation beginning this Monday, is it not also fair to assume that the next day (i.e. Tuesday) will also involve a busy orientation schedule, requiring to be out of the house all day, etc. etc.

Upon arriving back at home a surprising fifteen minutes later, I consult my orientation schedule to confirm that I will be out of the house Tuesday, and in fact every day for the rest of the week. I pick up my phone, at which point this story makes a slight shift towards Customer Service Calls From Hell.

I dial the number and, when prompted, enter the extension they gave me at the Delivery desk for any and all inquiries regarding my delivery. After two rings, I am immediately routed back to the welcome menu, which instructs me to enter the appropriate extension.

It is a testiment to the utter lack of intuition and common sense among otherwise educated people that I re-enter the extension twice, with the same results, before wising up to the fact that I’m probably not going to get anywhere with that particular plan of attack.

So, I stay on the line, choosing absolutely none of the other menu options, as if I were some kind of backwoods rotary-phone user. (Lifehacker told me this is the quickest way to get an actual human on the line.) After several mintues of blaring, distorted hold music, an amiable and slightly effeminate-sounding man named Richard comes on the line. I explain my situation to him and tell him I’d like to reschedule my delivery. He says fine, but that there will be a fifteen dollar fee for rescheduling. After ascertaining that he is, in fact, saying “fifteen” and not “fifty,” I acquiesce.

This is where it gets ugly.

He asks if I have access to a fax machine. I say no. He says that in order to charge me the extra fifteen dollars, they have to process my credit card, and in order to do that, they need to fax me an authorization form to sign and fax back to them, authorizing them to charge fifteen dollars to my credit card. Then he’s silent, offering no other options, which means two things in the customer-service world: 1) there are no other options, and 2) he’s bracing himself for an inevitable explosion of vitriol and ill-will directed at him, Poor Richard.

But I don’t explode, not yet. I’m still stuck on the word “fax.” What the fuck year is this? 1989? Who in the world still uses a goddamn fax machine, let alone expects the average American civilian to just have one lying around waiting for an incoming credit card authorization from goddamn IKEA? Why, when every other over-the-phone transaction situation in which I’ve ever engaged requires nothing more than the usual mother’s-maiden-name / last-four-digits-of-my-SS# kind of credit card authorization, is a cutting-edge Swedish furniture manufacturer still using such a nakedly obsolescent technology as their sole means of communication?

I don’t say any of those things, however. Instead, I just exhale and say, “Wow, I wish I’d known about that sooner.”

“I understand, Mr Mohan, and I’m sorry.”

I exhale again. It’s at this point that I go past the usual threshhold of timid decorum I maintain with people in the service industry. I’m usually so meek in these situations. I eat dangerously undercooked meat at restaurants because I don’t want to hurt the cook’s feelings by sending it back. So what I say next surprises me. “I mean, what an incredible pain in the ass.”

But Richard’s right there with me. “I know, sir, and believe me, we’ve had many complaints about it, which we pass on to the management, but it’s the only way to do it at this time, sir.”

I’m proud of myself for not completely taking my frustration out, as I’m sure so many others have, on Richard, a lowly urchin in IKEA’s Twin Cities call center. He’s being very kind, and understands my frustration. The problem is that he’s only offering me one non-fax option, which is to drive back down to Bloomington and appear in person to authorize a goddamn fifteeen-dollar credit card transaction. This is where whatever vestiges of compassion that remain from my occasional dabblings in Buddhism get the better of me and convince me to treat this person with respect, rather than flying into a spittle-flecked rage in order to expedite my Getting Exactly What I Want, When I Want It, which if I’m not mistaken is the God-given right of every American person who isn’t below the poverty line or otherwise disenfranchised.

I just exhale again. “Well, then, I guess I’ll just come in on Saturday, which is the next day I can possibly get down there, to authorize this transaction.”

“Again, I apologize.”

“And I just can’t think of a more ridiculous or inconvenient way to go about doing this.” I actually say this. My German mother, who consults Consumer Reports religiously, would be so proud of me.

“I understand, Jake, and I’m sorry that there isn’t.” That bastard! He’s using my first name now! He’s making it so hard for me to hate him!

But I’m most proud of what I say next, which I should emphasize is totally out of character for me. “Well, I realize it’s not your fault, Richard, but I invite you to pass along my sentiments to your superiors, using the same language that I did.”

Again, this seems to come as no surprise to Richard. He’s probably passed along sentiments that are far more generously sprinkled with obscenities and other colorful epithets. So with that, the call is concluded uneventfully.

But for a short while after I get off the phone, despite the fact that I haven’t really achieved anything, I feel a little more powerful, a little more volatile. I feel the sort of alpha-male surge of adrenaline that only appertains to arrogant blowhards of the sort I just became for only the briefest moment. I can see now why some people seem to thrive on complaining: it gives them the vivid, violent thrill of being wronged in an ultimately trivial and innocuous way, of being on the raw end of a deal, of being yet another victim of asinine ineptitude.

If I’m not careful, I could get used to it.