I think I first heard about Ikea when I was 10, and living in Los Angeles near the beach with my mom. I was wondering aloud why I had to have a shitty, old-person hand-me-down bed while my best friend from across the street got a bed with a more youthful design, utilizing clean lines and storage efficiency (maybe those weren't the exact words of a 10-year-old Pamela). Damn her. That bed was from Ikea.
The first time I actually went to Ikea, I was 17 years old and FINALLY picking out a new bed, for what would be my first apartment. My first experience in Ikea can best be summed up by a famous painting by MC Escher:
Those showrooms are all part of a never-ending labrynth of commerce! I started taking shortcuts, only to find myself even more lost. I had my little furniture codes written down with a borrowed pencil nub, as if I could use them to grant me access to a secret exit where I come out into some kind of parallel universe, a universe of people who were all enjoying their newly-purchased Ikea furniture (those clean lines!) in the comfort of their own homes. As my blood sugar began to plummet, I dragged onward until I reach the oasis that is the mid-store cafeteria:
Meatballs and gravy! God bless those Swedes.
Temporarily nourished, I advanced toward the exit, only to find that delerium had set in. It goes a little something like this:
"okay, want that bed! writing down the code...hmm, that comforter is nice too, I'll write that down...ooh! How cute! Little ice cube trays in the shape of poodles! Must have....Gasp! A totally pointless and random knick knack that will only clutter the surface of my desk and take up space in my trash can when I decide to throw it away 10 years later, yes, definitely gotta have that...Oh my god! A worthless box of shit that my cat will choke on and die, called "Snudabodunlatkafrom"! Are they reading my mind!?"
Ikea knows that 99-cent poodle-shaped ice cube trays are like crack to an unsuspecting twenty-something girl. And putting a Swedish name on things somehow makes them more relevant to your tastes/life. It has to: how else could I possibly justify purchasing a white soap dish that pointlessly "holds" my soap about half an inch above the totally appropriate normal soap storage site (the surface of the damn sink!)?
Even after all this (not to mention the brutal checkout lines and the fact that Ikea is NEVER just down the street. No, it has to be a gazillion miles away, like some kind of all-day trek to the real Swedish Embassy. Even people that live right next to it find that it miraculously takes light years to actually get to!), nothing compares to the pure delight of assembling your furniture in the comfort of your own home. Ikea has made the process so simple! They give you what looks like a bent piece of coat hanger and a directions manual WITH NO WORDS. Instead, there is some smiley happy generic guy who is wordlessly mocking your inability to assemble the coffee table you just purchased. I own a few pieces of Ikea furniture: one is not structurally sound (turns out I put a panel in the wrong place), and another had to be glued together in crucial places after a dowel was misplaced (those things do NOT come out). This is just par for the course.
Despite my horrific accounts, I find myself returning again and again. Maybe I'm addicted. Either way, we all know who gets the last laugh. And it's a very hearty, uprorious, Swedish kind of laugh, one you can hear from a gazillion miles away at your own neighborhood Ikea store.
Happy shopping!
