The Saga of the Mirror

Ikea is a wonderful company. They make furniture which is cheap, functional and although somewhat of a pain to put together, stylish in a Swedish kind of way. One of their most popular products is a 5ft tall mirror, stylishly called the STAVE.

We are a big fan of AirBnB. It’s a website that lets you rent properties that the owners typically live in, but want to rent out for some cash while they spend their time in foreign lands, or at their boyfriend/girlfriends place doing unmentionable things that are illegal in Arkansas. Our initial stay in Paris was at one such apartment, of a lovely gentleman that we will never meet called Song - yes Song and STAVE do go together. Song was away in Vietnam at the time, and graciously and in return for many thousands of Euros rented his place to us.

Song was also a fan of the STAVE mirror, and proudly had one in his apartment. However his placement was not to our liking, and we moved it to our bedroom. Unfortunately a gust of wind ripped through the open window, causing the door to slam closed, dislodging the mirror from its place against the wall, and SMASH – no more STAVE.

We thought about acknowledging the incident with Song, but decided the cost of replacement was probably cheaper than the hassle we would get – and besides dealing with a mirror replacement from Vietnam probably was a lot of hassle for our man. We tried to repair it, but like all Ikea products, replacement is cheaper than reparations. While Ikea is great, one of the ways they keep the cost of their products low is to put their stores in the suburbs. So one day I took the train out to Ikea, walked a mile, walked another mile through the maze that is an Ikea store, and located the mirror. I bypassed the Swedish meatballs, walked a mile back to the train station with said mirror, and brought it back to the apartment. Let me tell you, walking through Metro turnstiles with a 5ft tall mirror is not easy. I might have used the F and C words a few times.

So we now have a gleaming replacement mirror in the apartment. I told everyone if they placed it near the door and it broke that I would throw them off the balcony, and proceeded to think about the next step – getting rid of the broken one.

The apartment building has a trash room that smells like Grade A Pig Farmers Ass. Little did we know how proud of their ass smelling garbage room the French are. A team meeting was held and we decided putting the broken mirror in a large bag to ensure no glass would escape, and placing it in the Ass room would be sufficient to have it disposed of. We did this, and relaxed and watched the World Cup confident the mirror episode was behind us. Little did we know the embers of indignity had been lit.

The first sign of trouble was a notice near the entrance to the building. I couldn’t translate the French writing, but the word MIROIR and IMMEDIATMENT and PROBLEME made sense. Apparently ass smelling rooms are not for disposing of broken mirrors. The person who left the mirror was to report to the Guardien immediately – supposedly for an immediate execution by guillotine. Additional signs started appearing – in the elevator. People were bringing out their post it notes and adding on to the dismay. This was turning ugly.

My instinct was to say “F you Im leaving, your problem”, but on the day of departure a feeling of responsibility overtook me. It might also have been the fact that it was 8am on a Sunday, and there was no one around. I took the elevator to the basement to see what carnage we had wrought. The mirror was there – nicely wrapped in bubble wrap. I grabbed it and bolted for the elevator. My accomplice Jenny was there – we maintained radio silence. The door opened, she took the right flank opening the doors to the outside world, I ran for the high ground and we successfully smuggled the mirror out of the building. I had rented a van for the getaway, and put the mirror in there. We high fived as we returned to the building – only to realize in our eagerness at subterfuge we’d forgotten the keys upstairs. The girls were still asleep, so we called Vanessa who meekly answered “hello” with a lower case h as she woke up. 

My plan was to leave the mirror in the van and turn the problem into a rental agency one. Europcar had kept me waiting for 2hrs on pickup because of a ridiculously long line at Gare de Lyon, so I figured payback was fair. We parked the van in the garage (underground) and due to the volume of shit we were taking with us on our trip to Cannes I had to make multiple trips to the van. Eventually it was empty, except for the albatross – the mirror. I took it out and hid it in front of another van. Better it not be traced to us.

So if you see a large mirror, in bubble wrap, carelessly discarded in an underground parking garage in Paris, its not ours.