Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Fact: ‘Some Assembly Required’ Furniture Is An Aphrodisiac

It recently occurred to me that if a boy took me to Ikea for a first date I am certain I would inevitably marry him.  If the night progressed into the collaborative assembly of a Billy bookcase I may even consider hosting his children.  As much as I hate generalizations, girls <3 Ikea.
Ikea is not just a furniture store, it is a magical world filled with hopes and dreams coded in fun Swedish names.  It is about the nostalgia of the past and the potential of the future.  It is about sentimental reminiscences of first apartments, bonding with friends over wine and cheap storage units, and all kinds of things that make us feel warm and fuzzy.  Ikea is life’s sequel to the candy store, and the cute cuddly puppy of the retail world.  Ikea is happiness.
A first trip to Ikea is a rite of passage that means you are officially grown up.  As you wander through that gigantic maze of immaculately laid out dining room sets you are faced with a sense of empowerment as you fantasize about all the amazing dinner parties you’ll be too busy to have.  But of course you don’t think about the fact that you’ll be too busy and poor to host lavish parties.  Instead you proudly fill up your cart with cocktail glasses and good intentions.
Ikea is about choices.  It is about exercising your free will, making your own decisions, and then making even more choices between black-brown or birch veneer.  You are a visionary, like Van Gogh but with more ears and ideally less syphilis.
Ikea is about late night takeout sushi, too many bottles of chardonnay, and laughing as you clumsily try to manoeuvre your first allen key.  It is the joy of learning how to use Ikea tools from your Ikea veteran friend who can whip together particle board like nobody’s business.  It is about that defining moment when you take a step back and gaze lovingly at the masterpiece you just built and think ‘wow, I have somewhere to put my shit now’.  It is the discovery that you can conquer any of life’s challenges: today the coffee table, tomorrow the world!  You own life!
(As an aside, I just realized I think I may have a crush on my friend Hayley.)
Moral of the story: Ikea is the way to my heart because, simply put, it brings out the best in me.  It brings out my happiness, independence, creativity, hope and strength.  The person I am at Ikea is the person I aim to be always in life.  That being said, I’m a little worried that now if a guy asks me to go to Ikea with him he’s maybe read this and just looking to get into my self-assembled Malm bed.  Revised conclusion: Going to Ikea and constructing Ikea furniture with your girl friends is awesome!

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