First of all, for those of you who are
deeply offended by my use of the word “ain’t” in the title of this week’s blog entry,
sorry. Well, sort of. If I were truly sorry, I probably wouldn’t have used it
in the first place. It just reminds me of a saying one of my nursery school
teachers would say when she heard a kid use the word: “…‘Ain’t’ ain’t a word,
and we ain’t gonna say it.” As I child, I always found that saying to be
totally stupid. Who was the genius that thought that it would be remotely
useful to use a disdained word three times in one sentence as a reminder not to use the word at all? To this
day, this saying makes absolutely no sense to me. Granted, I actually do remember
the sentence, but I was never one to use “ain’t” in any case – unless, of
course, for narrative emphasis. It’s a cheap trick, I know. But it gets
results.
This entry actually isn’t about the
etymology of the word “ain’t”; it’s about IKEA. (Whoa! You’re probably
wondering where that came from. As you should already know by now, randomness
comes second nature to me.) If you are over the age of 18 and don’t live at home
with your parents anymore, you probably know of which store I am referring to.
I don’t know if I can call IKEA a “store”. I personally liken it to being one
of Big Brother’s Labs created to look like a massive furniture store. You
either love the place or you don’t; but depending on the size of your budget,
you probably end up going there either way.
Such has been the case with us. I usually
like shopping, I guess. But I’m the kind of person who’s always on some kind of
mission. That means I go in, I look for the specific items I need or want, I
look at some additional items that might catch my eye for a little while, and
then I’m ready to make the purchase and move on my next mini-mission. At IKEA,
however, you may as well write off half a day before you even get in the car to
drive there. Insanely enough, those Swedes found a way to make furniture
shopping a universally torturous glorious experience around the world.
IKEA, here in Germany, pronounced
“EE-KAY-AH”, forces you to walk through a maze, going so far as to adding a
blue or yellow dotted line to “guide” you along the way. (Are you feeling like
a lab rat yet?) Even if you know exactly what you want, say, an inexpensive
office chair, you must walk through at least four unrelated departments before
you can get to the one you want. Along the way, you must battle through people
who stop the flow of traffic to look at a purple Bårgy, whatever that is, and
leave their cart – and infant child, mind you – unattended to gaze at this new
IKEA item in wonderment. Meanwhile, as you try to skirt this diversion by
walking on the other side, you’re side blocked by a group of confused looking
people walking in the opposite direction of the obnoxious dotted line, who, in
addition to having failed the first test, also look irritable and
confrontational as people continue to get in their way.
By the way, if you are in a hurry, you are
an idiot for going to IKEA in the first place.
I’m not going to get into the details of
the IKEA shopping experience. Scholars have written books on the place, and focus
specifically on the manipulative techniques and product placement used to
intentionally create psychological experiences before and after the sale. I
know many people who scoff at their products and claim that they’re so inferior
to other brands, blah, blah, blah, but when we go to visit them at their place and
see their Billy bookshelves etc., they sheepishly admit that “for now” they,
too will “settle” for IKEA products. Whatever. I know other people who go there
with their kids and have a celebrated “IKEA” day, which is absolutely
horrifying to me. My husband and I do not celebrate going to this store. We do
not ride there thinking, “Yippee! We’re going to be herded around like cattle,
wait in an exasperatingly long line and have to figure out how to fit these
crazy boxes in a car that is clearly not large enough to accommodate them.” We
don’t eat the scary hydrogenated pellets or anything else they have to offer in
their canteen, so by the time we’ve finally selected all that we need and pay
the fee to have the majority of that mess delivered directly to our home, we’re
exhausted, starving and ready to drop kick the happy families leaving the store
with 1 Euro hotdogs and 50 cent ice cream cones in hand. This actually was an excursion for them!
Back at home; when it’s time to build up
the items, I can’t begin to tell you what change comes over my husband. He gets
this determined look on his face, pulls out the instruction manual and all of
his tools and gets to work. He’s going to build
something, gosh darn it! At this point, he clearly has this major surge of
testosterone, which I find to be perplexingly sexy and hilarious at the same
time. For the love of humanity, it’s just an IKEA bedroom set, but after you’ve
taken those countless hours to build your adult Lego-home, you can’t help by
feel a major sense of accomplishment. The best thing about IKEA items is that when
you put together something that you’re going to be using on a daily basis, you
have a deeper sense of attachment to it because you helped bring that
particular item into being. You’re proactively contributing to the betterment of
your living space and you’re doing the family budget a favor at the same time.
Our IKEA shopping binges are always an eye-opener
for me. As annoying and generally frustrating as I find it to be, it still
amazes me how many things you can actually buy in one place for your interior
decorating needs. Through your efforts and the genius that is IKEA, you and Big
Brother’s Furniture Lab have brought you one step closer to making your house,
your apartment, your loft, or whatever – a home.
©2012 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights
reserved.
