Tranquility Lost
“My recent, and first-ever, trip to Ikea revealed two things to me:
the Swedes have excellent furniture, and they are pretentious, cocky,
confusing bastards who need punched in the face for creating a store
that inspires such madness. I went to the Ikea in Robinson Twp. looking
for a set of drinking glasses, and I left a frazzled, confused and
somewhat enlightened mess. The store itself is a paradox wrapped up in
a flaky, low-carb enigma. For as much as it is insane and disorganized,
it has a wonderful, cost-efficient zen about it that really makes me
want to go back.
When you initially walk into the store, you say to yourself “Hey,
where’s da stuff?!” The front windows of the store were filled with
colored plastic balls, covered with a fine topping of children, and for
a second I thought I accidentally drove to Chuckie Cheeses (again).
There isn’t any merchandise or anything on the inside of the door, just
a staircase leading insanity.
You walk up the stairs and start a long chain of cells that is as
cluttered and maddening as a yard sale after a tornado. But at the same
time, it’s clever. Each cell is a room, and the cells are grouped by
the type of room they are. So you initially walk into a cluster of
living rooms, each with a different set of furniture and decorations.
And you can buy anything you see sitting around, from laptops to
ottomans to plates. My biggest issue with this idea is that the items
to buy aren’t just sitting nearby on a shelf. You have to take a card
or write down the number of the stuff you want, and then go down to
their Home Depot-esque warehouse section, which is conveniently hidden
from the rest of the world.
My friend Chris described the whole experience like going on a field
trip to the zoo… you walk by looking at everything, but it’s a one
way path. So if you want to go back and get something in the bathroom
section, you have to walk BACK through the living room, the kitchen,
and the backyard. It’s rather frustrating, especially since there is no
rhyme or reason to the layout of the clusters. This is a subliminal
form of punishment invoked on us capitalist pigs by the socialist
Swedes… you wanna buy stuff from them, you gotta walk for it you
fatties!…”
Mike Rubino
Visit his blog, “Tranquility Lost”
Image: One Thousand Words @ FLICKR
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