Getting intimate with Ikea

I am happy that I agreed to go with Dumpling and his dad to Ikea yesterday. Really, I am. But I wish I had known what I was getting into when I accepted the invitation. I foolishly visualized our trip as something like this: the two men pick up some small, easy-to-find items for the new restaurant, while I carefully but quickly select beautiful, affordable paragons of home furnishing that transform our apartment from a cluttered cluster of rooms into a spacious, organized home.

My heart sank when I saw that there were actually five of us making the trek to the festering piers of Red Hook (the nearest Ikealand location). I knew right away that I was in for a big fat time-suck of an afternoon, and I was right. But there’s no self-pity here: everyone suffered equally. I'm sure my bitchy remarks and impatience were at least as annoying as their meatball-eating and snail-like decision-making. I kept telling myself that the fact that Dumpling and I will no longer have to keep our glassware in a plastic bin on the kitchen floor makes up for all of it.

Making a shopping list at Ikea is like writing a fantasy novel: first I must seek out Lerberg, Granemo, and Aneboda. Then we will be joined by Rationell Variera, Frodo, and Boromir—but we'll need Gandalf’s magic to assemble all this shit before Memorial Day. Fortunately all the boxes are flat and easy to stack. Look, Dumpling, we have a bench!

More than the labyrinth-like setup, more than the constant whining and mewling of babies and toddlers, even more than the early-nineties soft rock soundtrack, what annoyed me the most at Ikea were the frequent and inescapable recorded announcements:

“Are you a mother-to-be, or visiting Ikea with your family? Look for our specially designated parking areas near the main entrance. Just one more way Ikea shows you that we care.”

Or some such crap. Over and over, the big cheerful voice from above extolled the virtues of Ikea’s prices, policies, and people. They don’t call their employees ‘employees’. It’s: “ask one of our co-workers about home delivery.” Just one big family-friendly commune of consumerism.

Comrades, listen: Ikea isn’t just about furniture and meatballs anymore. Disturbingly, they now have Ikea shampoo and shower gel. What’s next, Ikea tampons? They could be called “Lilltüben”: You get a box with a flat strip of cotton padding, a string, and a disassembled applicator. But they're half the price of “ready-to-use” tampons and come in six fun colors, so let's start rolling!

I think I now understand the secret to Ikea's success: their perfectly coordinated display areas and minimalist designs are the equivalent of a svelte bikini body and a "flatten your belly now!" line on a magazine cover. They promise that buying attractive items will improve your life, and even though you know it's not the answer (wouldn't getting rid of all the extra dishes be easier than buying furniture to store them in?) you bring it into your home anyway.

I'm hoping that stripping away the outer packaging, meditating on the glyphic instructions, and building something useful out of all the odd-shaped pieces will be a valuable, symbolic exercise. I'll straighten up my kitchen and my priorities.

And if only the most perfect spice rack in the whole world hadn't been out of stock, then I would definitely never go back there again...