Behind them slouched their male partners, vacant-eyed, disconsolate men, some feigning interest by picking up a cushion and regarding it thoughtfully before replacing it, most standing and staring in their private purgatories until summonsed to move on by their women.

"Go to Ikea," they had said. "You'll find everything you want there."

The litter of children snarling and snapping at each other's ankles at the entry turnstile as their parents attempted to herd them into some sort of crèche-like holding pen should have been recognised as a sign from above to turn and flee into the car park.

Alas, I had allowed my underlying distaste for shopping to prevail, thinking that if I could obtain all I needed in one traumatic swoop, I'd save myself the horror of trudging all over the city.

It was while I was wondering at the difference between mid-brown and chocolate brown beds that I overheard someone talking about "self assembly".

I am accomplished in self-delusion, self-aggrandisement and self-pity, but I do not do self assembly. I did it once, wrestling on the floor of the study for eight hours with pieces of wood which allegedly, when assembled, would resemble a desk. It remains one of the darker episodes of my DIY past and I vowed never to indulge in self assembly again.

To attempt the assembly of a bed and a television cabinet, my primary needs, would, I knew, be to tempt the fates beyond reason. Abandoning my shopping plans, I decided to leave. Entering one of these stores, however, is like joining The Mob. Once you're in, it's very difficult to get out.

Around and around I walked, exit signs leading me through mock bedrooms and mock kitchens and mock living rooms before depositing me back in the mock bedrooms. I found my way back to the entry but there was no escape there unless I jumped over the turnstile. Athleticism is not a good on a Saturday morning and leaping the turnstile was not an option.

Dragged again by the tide, I was sucked back into the store, the current taking me past the kitchen utensils. Knives! I needed knives, so I grabbed a carving knife and a bread knife and a brace of what looked like large glass specimen jars.

I've still no idea what I'm going to do with the jars but it's the nature of these stores - you feel compelled to buy something. It was then that I saw the chrome rubbish bins. I needed bins - three bins - and they were cheap.

It is not possible, believe me, to carry three chrome rubbish bins, two specimen jars, a bread knife and a carving knife. After the third attempt at balancing the bins and some unpleasantness with a fellow shopper, I relented. I needed a trolley, but the trolleys would, I knew, be outside, Woolies-style.

Patience exhausted, I stashed my bins, knives and jars in a corner and after following the labyrinth for what seemed like several kilometres, eventually sighted some checkout operators. "Praise the Lord," I muttered and joined a queue, seconds later becoming aware of a high-pitched whining in the left ear.

It was coming from a woman of indeterminate years, none of which had been particularly kind, and she appeared to be suffering some sort of seizure.

   "Pardon," I said as she waived her arms and whined.
   "Oiminthiskew," she said.

I thought at first that she had said she was hirsute for indeed she was, sporting a handsome moustache, but it transpired that she was accusing me of appropriating her place in the queue.

   "I didn't see you," I said as her arms continued to flail the air like the sails of a crazed human windmill.
   "Oim next," she said, barging forward. Fearful of making physical contact with her, I leapt backwards.
   "Please go ahead," I said, wishing a pox on her and her house.

I made it through the checkout and found the entrance. The trolleys. There were no trolleys! I asked a youth in the full flush of pimplehood where I would find them.

   "They're inside, mate," he said.
   "Inside? No one puts trolleys inside. They line them up outside near the door," I wailed.
   "No, mate," he insisted. "We put them inside."

Barely controlling the urge to weep, I spent another 10 minutes wandering up and down the labyrinth, in and out of mock bedrooms and studies.

"God," I thought. "Some of these people must live here. They entered as children and, unable to find their way out, have grown up inside these walls knowing no other life than wandering the corridors of Ikea."

In the end I stole someone else's trolley, found my stash of bins and knives and raced to the checkout, where I managed to be processed without being attacked by any more deranged women.