Sometimes things don’t go according to plan – and then you have a choice. Either you mope around and feel sorry for yourself, or you laugh about the situation and keep looking forward.
When Norwegian Claus Jørstad had an embarrassing incident in the shower with his newly bought IKEA stool, he decided to do the latter – and shared his experience in a humorous Facebook post.
What he didn’t know was that the story would become an internet sensation.
What happened was that Claus Jørstad had a bad knee, so he decided that it would be a good idea to get a stool so he could sit down in the shower.
After looking at different alternatives at IKEA, he decided to go for the “Marius” stool since it was made out of steel and plastic, and was comfy.
But there was one thing that Claus had forgotten about: the stool had 8 small holes in it, something that would soon cause an uncomfortable problem. On his Norwegian Facebook page, he writes about the incident:
“Once I got home, I put my new piece of furniture in the shower and got in, this time without clothes. I calmly sat down on the stool and soaped up my whole body, including the ‘captain’ and his ‘two sailors’. As you might imagine, the sailors are what dangles between my legs, but since this is a public Facebook post I’ll stick to more flowery language.”
“So, when the deck got slippery and the captain and his crew got dizzy from all the foam, they started sliding around like drunk sailors!” Claus writes, and continues:
“Then something terrible happened. A sailor unwittingly made his escape and slid down one of the holes in the stool. I didn’t notice at first, but as you know things tend to expand when they are warmed up. And when a sailor gets really hot, then he really expands in size. I didn’t notice this until I tried standing up, only to find that the stool was hanging on behind me, and a searing white pain went through me like lightning. That good-for-nothing sailor was stuck in the hole!”
“So there I sat. And sat. I was thinking about my predicament and trying to figure a way out of it. I couldn’t pull up the sailor, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to push him up from below without having to go to the hospital. So I kept sitting there, pondering,” Claus writes.
But as he was sitting there in the accidental trap, the problem started solving itself:
“I sat there until I ran out of hot water – and when the hot water runs out, you get cold, terribly cold.” he writes, and continues:
“Since I started getting cold, I thought about how I could keep warm, so I tried reaching for the hair dryer… and guess what happened?!? The cold had made that damn sailor shrink again, and with a pop I was a free man once more!”
The honest story made readers double over with laughter, and in just one day he received 25,000 likes and 12,000 shares. On the same day, IKEA wrote an ingenious Facebook comment:
“Hello Claus. We’re sorry to hear that your crew got in trouble and that the Coast Guard almost had to intervene. We recommend you take this stool out of the shower and put a nice flower pot on it.
If you do decide to keep it in the shower, then make sure that you’re wearing the right clothing for a rough day at sea – we recommend putting on a sou’wester. Have a great day,” writes IKEA.
I think this was a great example of someone able to laugh at themselves!
SHARE if you think people should take themselves less seriously!
