2001-04-11 - 3:44 p.m.
This weekend was a washout, and I mean that literally. I�d planned on going up to L.A. to see a musician friend perform but a freak rainstorm on Saturday took all the motivation out of me. So, with nothing better in mind, I did what any bored-shitless North American would do.
I went to IKEA.
Please, let me explain.
My one-bedroom Fortress of Doom has gotten way too small in the two-and-a-half years I�ve been working at home. (Basically, I�m fucking sick of working in my living room--of having my computer workstation stare me in the face immediately as I trudge out of the bedroom in the morning and be the first thing anyone sees when he or she walks in the front door. I love my job, but living rooms are for living. Work is not living. WORK IS NOT LIVING.) So I�ve started looking for a larger place--not an easy thing to do, since San Diego right now has an acute low- and moderate-income housing shortage which the politicians and developers have responded to by building lots and lots of housing that only insanely rich people can afford. Fortunately, my landlord has offered me first dibs on a ground-floor unit that has just opened up. It�s still only 1B, but it�s a lot bigger, with a good-sized dining area that will hold all my office shit and can be easily screened off so I don�t have to look at it when I�m not working. Which means I�d get my living room back.
Of course, that also means I�d have to buy some actual living room furniture--a sofa and a coffee table, at the bare minimum.
Ergo, IKEA.
Personally, I have nothing against IKEA. (It�s an integral part of The Plan, as a matter of fact. You didn�t think it was just coincidence that IKEA stores not only look but are laid out exactly like Borg cubes, did you? And if you want to live a long and happy life you won�t even ask what goes into those meatballs.) Others have ranted most eloquently about why IKEA is evil, and if I weren�t the ultimate mastermind behind the evil I�d agree with them wholeheartedly.
My real problem is that I just plain hate shopping for furniture. I have this rare type of multiple personality disorder that manifests itself only when I look at furniture. There are about half a dozen personalities I�ve identified, but three seem to dominate--let�s call them Todd, Billy and Scrooge McDuck. Todd is a total design fag who won�t shut up about how we just have to have that $400 Tiffany lamp or that $2,000 leather sofa or that $1,500 desk that looks like Frank Lloyd Wright might have passed out on it in an absinthe stupor--if I listened to Todd I�d be flat broke, but my cardboard box on Skid Row would look fabulous. Billy is my inner child, and as such he loves things that remind him of his childhood, i.e., all that retro-�70s shit the kids go crazy for these days but all sane people think is unspeakably ugly. (During my furniture-angst episodes Billy often strikes up alliances with another personality, Stevo, a hipster who likes the same shit as he does but only because it�s, like, ironic.) Scrooge McDuck doesn�t believe in spending more than $100 on any piece of furniture--hell, he doesn�t believe in furniture, period. I already spend all my time in this one chair that cost the insurance company two grand--who needs a sofa? Guests can grab a throw pillow and sit on the floor for all he cares.
That last personality also reads way too much Ayn Rand. But I digress.
I figured if anyplace could fuse these personas together, IKEA would be it. It�s a safe, totally structured environment. Just follow the arrows on the floor and you end up seeing everything (in fact, if you try to backtrack or take any shortcuts some Swedish gumba will appear from out of nowhere and zap you with a cattle prod, so don�t even try it.) As with Vegas casinos, there are no windows or clocks to tell you how much time you�ve been wandering around. The goods on display are in soothing neutral colors and are out to offend no one, neither too tacky or too tasteful--they�re the ABBA, the Ace of Base, the Olof Palme of home furnishings. And the cute, Don-Martin-sound-effect-like brand names can�t help but leave you giggling.
I figured, there�s got to be something at IKEA that all three of them will like.
No such luck.
Todd kept making "Ick! Ptooey!" sounds. Billy liked everything there (especially the bookshelves bearing his name), but only in brown--that way, the next time he barfed up a bowlful of Count Chocula while watching Land of the Lost no one would ever notice. Scrooge McDuck just kept making these quacking noises and trying constantly to steer me into the As-Is section. (Granted, they did have a beautiful Vlemglork sofa there for only $50, but it only had three legs and came with a sharp metal projection in the back that had traces of blood on it, so I passed.)
Actually, I think IKEA may have done the trick after all, since the three seem to have canceled each other out now--"integration," the shrinks call it. I�m so integrated now I could shit meatballs. All I want now is a sofa that doesn�t look as if it belonged to my grandmother--is that so wrong?
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