Lost in the wild west

Swedish meatballs versus French sausage? It's a no-contest. But how far would you go for the good stuff?

Because we forgot to go to the Kings Cross market yesterday for our saussison (France's delicious answer to salami) we had to go to the wild west ( Marrickville) today. We also had to go to IKEA for some random brackets and light globes, so we thought; " Hey lets try the new store at Tempe." 
Had no idea, never been to Tempe, never heard of Tempe, but apparently it's in the wild west conveniently close to Marrickville Organic Markets.

What a cultural acid peel. What a dump.Tempe sounds quite exotic, 'till you get there and see the grand collection of domestic and commercial architectural vomit, with shabby used car yards on every corner. It's like Melbourne's Broad Meadows or Deer Park. No Meadows, no Deer and not Tempe'd to stay here a minute longer than you have to.

IKEA was OK, except for the fact that Småland was harder to get into than Chateau Marmont: and believe me, Princess Highway Tempe is a far cry from Sunset Boulevard.

We shopped a bit with our funny little trolly-passenger keeping us amused with her kooky banter. And so charmed were we, she totally conned us into buying an enormous floppy panther just before we hit the Ikea cafe, for some Swedish meatballs.

mmmm yummy no?

This is where you most realise you're not in Kansas anymore. Mums and Dads at nearly every table are snarling threats at their kids. I wonder; "Have they not heard of bribes here, then?" [ nervous giggle.]

"Jus siddown or I'm gunna smack yer bum agen!" shouts one enormous scary mum.

There's lots of 'Ja wanna anutha smack'ing' And 'WOP'ing going on in that cafeteria.


Fortunately Lucie doesn't notice the elevated levels of child abuse because she's deep in quiet conversation with her new panther and making introductions to Ellie, her little knitted elephant.

An original arthritic-fingers-hand-knit from the Philip Island Country Women's' Association charity shop :0)

 

Later we're in the lighting department and Lucie gasps "Ellie! Wheres Ellie?" And suddenly it's a code 3 alert with mummy and daddy, eyes akimbo, necks pivoting side to side like a pair of deranged budgies, hunting up and down the isles for this very precious gift from Nana.
  

"Excuse me have you seen a small knitted elephant?"

With Ellie retrieved, a few loooong queues later, we're back in the car, without the delicious meatballs because they come frozen and are bound to thaw on the long ride back to civilisation. Our GPS co-pilot Kate, tells us to make a sharp right but, "NOT THAT SHARP RIGHT!!" I'm convinced, Homer Simpson, our regular  navigator would never have done that to us.


Before you know it we're in a freeway tunnel doing 5klms/hr heading for Canberra (nowhere near the Lower North Shore) and the meatballs are starting to repeat on us.

Being trapped in a two kilometre long tunnel, we'd thoughtfully switched the air con to 'recycle' mode, but instead of filling the car with exhaust fumes, now we're asphyxiating on recycled meatball fumes and we're all feeling a little 'off.'

A nice song comes on the radio we all like so for a distraction I Shazam it to find out the band name. The song is "I Need You Now" and the band is... Wait for it...
Lady Antebellum!



Both grown-ups (I use that term loosely) start laughing. And the conversation goes something like this;

"What kind of a name is Lady Antebellum?"
"Sounds like a medical condition,"
"Sounds like a growth,"
"Oh, sorry can't do Tuesday, I'm going in for day surgery to have my antebellums removed."
"Oh yes, I had an antebellum removed from my septum last year."
"Oooh, nasty!"

________________________________________________________________________________ 





NB so for those who don't know (and I had to look it up) antebellum means 'pre-war'.


Nothing at all to do with disease, or growths or anything that may become attached to anyone's septum, but you've got to admit its a weird sounding word and an odd name for a band. And in my experience, it is especially funny to people trapped in small spaces getting intoxicated on a meatball-burp-tainted air-supply. 

Try it sometime.  Or not.

Post Mortem on the Swedish meatballs; could I be more glad I didn't fork out $12 for a kilo of these monsters? FIVE HOURS LATER!!! They're still with me. Delicious as they were, first time around, [urph] never again!


Tonight at the dinner table as Lucie did a re-enactment of the Blazing Saddles' Baked Bean sequence I could only come to one conclusion: give me French Sausage over Swedish Meatballs any day. 

If you live in Sydney and you're curious... La Planchette is the only place to get the good stuff. 

 Do you love IKEA as much as I do?

What favorite foods would you drive waaay outa town for? 

FYBF linky

linking with the fabulous Multitasking Mummy!

Antebellum
Adjective
1. Before or existing before a war, especially the American Civil War; the antebellum plantations of Georgia