A Pseudo-Tribute to IKEA

I am infamous if not for my frivolous fascination with famed Nordic furnishing depot, IKEA. Since I first encountered the assaultingly yellow block-lettered presswood repository as a boy, I've had an odd yearning for Swedish meatballs every time I pass one of these giant blue warehouses. IKEA holds a special place in my heart as the furnisher of the bulk of my apartment accoutrements in nigh every country I've lived in. Whenever I've moved into a flat, my first instinct has been to seek out everyone's favorite lingonberry slinging stockroom and wander its serpentine halls until I've stocked up on every rinky-dink kitchen tchotchke known to Scandinavian kind.

I must admit I remember very little of my first trip to IKEA. I imagine it was, like most IKEA trips are, a labyrinthine blur of blind turns. What I do remember, is my younger brother receiving an odd multi-functional bedframe that served as a bunk bed, loft bed, adventure room, and imaginary spaceship. While my imagination has now dwindled to that of thinking of my future as a stay-at-home cat dad clad in cardigans, I was once a precocious little bastard with a fantastical mindset that gleamed with all sorts of outlandish adventures; the sort that would make Tolkien eat his heart out (or perhaps Tolkien's slightly less talented and mildly touched second cousin). I digress. The other set piece of outrageous furniture purchased that trip by our loving grandmother was a small plastic swivel chair in the shape of an egg. A convertible hooding transformed the uncomfortable seat into an escape pod, a time machine, a tiny fort (also you could spin the shit out of it with someone inside and make them sick). Those bedroom pieces left quite the lasting impression on me.

Since that fateful trip, I've been enamored with the maze-like furniture emporium. IKEA holds for me a sense of wonderment from its ability to combine my eternal adolescent love of LEGOs with my strangely paternal fondness for putting together furniture. Assembling IKEA furniture is to me like model train sets are to milquetoast stepfathers. I find it to be a relaxing process that inspires a sense of masculinity as I construct shoddy Allen key specific furnishings (relaxing until 10 minutes in when I'm sweating like a whore in mass and cursing the blithe Swede sonofabitch who designed this Escher-esque monstrosity of a bookcase). It hearkens to the sense of accomplishment I obtained when I finished putting together my LEGO Millennium Falcon at 12 (ladies, please, get in line).

One cannot mention IKEA without mentioning its inexplicably academic cafeteria, where frozen meatballs are slathered in gravy and bitter lingonberry sauce. This low-cost dining room has served me many a lunch. Sure the meatballs are made of the same material as the desks, but they're tasty, healthy (citation needed), and superbly cheap. I will recommend against drinking the IKEA brand beer. Which probably doesn't really need to be said...

With all this adulation about IKEA's many superior qualities, I must admit it has its weaknesses. The spying on its employees, the destruction of historic sites, the horsemeat meatballs (those darn delicious horsemeat meatballs I might add), and also apparently killing a handful of kids (not purposefully I mean... I think... I hope...). For me, the ultimate downfall of IKEA is my own crippling sense of nostalgia (and the fact that it's a daedal morass of lunacy). I had a terrible tendency to romanticize people, places, and things I haven't seen in a while. When I see an IKEA, I get that undeniable urge for senseless capitalist consumerism that I positively abhor. I find myself desperately wanting to outfit an entire home without any planning whatsoever. 

As all IKEA trips begin, I enter with feelings of eagerness and desire to explore. However, by the time I've made it halfway through first part of the showrooms, I find myself overwhelmed and desperate for escape. Crying out for Ariadne, I continue my frenzied adventure, stumbling through halls of finished bed and bathrooms in a stupor, as though I was in some alien simulation. Eventually I make it to the next part, where the actual items are available to grab (keep in mind that by this time my bag is full of oddities that I've snagged during my walk through the showrooms). I continue my mad dash for the exit, briefly retracing my steps to grab that delightful rhubarb-scented candle, then realizing I've gone further back than I anticipated, so I take one of the shortcuts only to find myself surrounded by stuffed animals and unprepared young parents in the baby section, and then it's oh God I'm lost and I can't find my way out, I'm going to die here this is it i'm done for its the end im stuck in an ikea theyll find my corpse jammed into a hamper its... Oh hey I'm at the end. Nice.

Except now I'm in the concrete and steel jungle that is the warehouse section. Massive brutalist structures of nightstands tower over me, their Lovecraftian size harrowing my meek mind. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to sprint along to the finish line, where some elderly worker breathes down my neck as I scan all the items in my oversized blue plastic bag (the material of which obtained from an alternate dimension where everything is crinkly and loud as hell). I step out into the crisp cool air of the autumn evening, bag of anomalous furnishings slung over my shoulder, I take a deep breath, turn around, and go "Ooh, an IKEA!"