Okay, last year, when I joked about IKEA, and
retail madness being thy name, I apparently knew not of what I spoke! Up until now, I really,
really thought the photo that I have M. scowling at me from across the parking lot in front of our neighborhood IKEA was an anomaly!
Surely I was the only girlfriend/fiancee/now-wife to be on the receiving end of
the look. But, then again, when I received
the look, I pretty much chalked it up to the massive crowds and a stereotypical male aversion to shopping and promptly forgot all about it because, luckily for me, M. is one of the most patient human beings on earth.
Little did I know that elsewhere in the world, in IKEA stores far, far away, the fates of relationships long and short were
also being tested by IKEA...and luckily, someone from the New York Sun, after witnessing many a domestic meltdown during what should be a relaxing day of shopping for cheap housewares, was compelled to put their observations in print! In reading
"Bröken Up By Ikea", I was
thrilled to learn that M. and I are not the only ones who have braved the crowds, wrestled carefully-selected and pondered-over-items from the warehouse shelves, waited in mind-numbing lines to pay for said items and triumphed mightily over the madness-inducing experience that shopping at IKEA can be...only to get home and realize that
you still have to assemble all that junk. And if you aren't testy up until that point, you will be! Unless you're like M. and turn the assembly phase into a physical challenge! We'd made several trips there by the time he deployed, and each trip generally involved bringing home some large furniture item, usually for my apartment. I gladly handed off the power tools and the assembly duties to M., but what I didn't realize is that over the course of our successive trips, he was challenging himself to build each item faster...and faster...and faster. Seriously, he was clocking his "personal bests" at putting tables and chairs together. The very last item he put together for me was a chest of drawers and I kid you not, as M. finished placing the final bolt, he slammed the cordless drill to the floor, jumped up from his knees and threw his hands in the air over his head a la a cowboy after a triumphant run at steer wrestling and yelled, "DONE! Yaaaah!" Ah, the joy that is the IKEA!
Okay, last year, when I joked about IKEA, and retail madness being thy name, I apparently knew not of what I spoke! Up until now, I really, really thought the photo that I have M. scowling at me from across the parking lot in front of our neighborhood IKEA was an anomaly! Surely I was the only girlfriend/fiancee/now-wife to be on the receiving end of the look. But, then again, when I received the look, I pretty much chalked it up to the massive crowds and a stereotypical male aversion to shopping and promptly forgot all about it because, luckily for me, M. is one of the most patient human beings on earth. Little did I know that elsewhere in the world, in IKEA stores far, far away, the fates of relationships long and short were also being tested by IKEA...and luckily, someone from the New York Sun, after witnessing many a domestic meltdown during what should be a relaxing day of shopping for cheap housewares, was compelled to put their observations in print! In reading "Bröken Up By Ikea", I was thrilled to learn that M. and I are not the only ones who have braved the crowds, wrestled carefully-selected and pondered-over-items from the warehouse shelves, waited in mind-numbing lines to pay for said items and triumphed mightily over the madness-inducing experience that shopping at IKEA can be...only to get home and realize that you still have to assemble all that junk. And if you aren't testy up until that point, you will be! Unless you're like M. and turn the assembly phase into a physical challenge! We'd made several trips there by the time he deployed, and each trip generally involved bringing home some large furniture item, usually for my apartment. I gladly handed off the power tools and the assembly duties to M., but what I didn't realize is that over the course of our successive trips, he was challenging himself to build each item faster...and faster...and faster. Seriously, he was clocking his "personal bests" at putting tables and chairs together. The very last item he put together for me was a chest of drawers and I kid you not, as M. finished placing the final bolt, he slammed the cordless drill to the floor, jumped up from his knees and threw his hands in the air over his head a la a cowboy after a triumphant run at steer wrestling and yelled, "DONE! Yaaaah!" Ah, the joy that is the IKEA!
