Keep your hands off my Malm, or I'll Flarke you up!

**Author's note...I don't feel very creative today**

If you've said one of the following phrases...

"Ohhhh I TREBENS with fearrr at that lamp!"
"Dude take a seat a re- LACKs ok?"
"No, you go FLARKE yourself!"
"Man, I don't think big BENNO is going to catch many passes like that"
"We're going to have to reposition your MALM in order to fit it in the trunk"

...then you my friend have been sucked into the particle board mecca that we Americans call an Ikea retail megalopolis! Aside from the punny non-sequiters and inside jokes, a trip to Ikea can be a wholistically fun experience. Let me tell you about how my last trip to Ikea went, and why my entire apartment is virtually sponsored by Ikea now.

Someone once told me that to take a trip to Ikea is to take a trip to the mythological Labyrinth ! Except in this labyrinth, not only are you trapped in the store with thousands of other lemmings looking for cheap furniture, but you have to fight TWO Minotauri once you get to the center!!!! Ok I made that last part up, but the store is like a cracked out Lowe's. For those of you who have never been to Ikea, let me give you the skinny on how to 1), find what you need, and then 2) make it out alive.

Step ONE: FOLLOW THE DOTS!! Throughout Ikea they have these dang dots and arrows all over the floor to tell you where to go, and what to look at. I don't know about you all out there in blog land, but when someone or something points me in a direction with colorful arrows or dots in an attempt to hold my attention (much like you would do for a kindergartner), I do what every red blooded dude in America does...I refuse to pay attention, and I figure things out myself!! Take THAT Ikea, I'll find a GRRDLE myself!

Ikea, however, has other plans for me.

See many people don't know this, but before Ikea started making stores, they actually pulled in an organizational consultant to design the layout of the store. Because I am a networking genius, I actually have a transcript of this conversation, circa 1977:

IKEA: We need a floor plan that will resemble a labyrinth, but with two Minotaurii at the center to kill people!

Consultant: I cannot ethically agree to having a Minotaur in the center of the store, but what I can agree to is designing a store that aggravates men!

IKEA: Ok we're listening

Consultant: Yes, what we will do is lay out childish dots and arrows all over the floor so that man think that they don't have to follow them...but in actuality, we will make the store so large and so confusing that if they refuse to follow the dots, they will get lost forever!

IKEA: That's a great idea! That way women can drag their male lovers along with them, and there's no way that they would be able to escape the shopping excursion!

Consultant: And actually, now that I think about it, I realize that you people at IKEA are Dutch! I just realized that you have little to no moral standards in the Netherlands...

IKEA: What are you saying (becoming giddy)?

Consultant: Well, the more I think about it...the more a Minotaur sounds like a perfectly good idea for your store!

IKEA: Hooray!!


Ok but seriously, the store is a mess. I happened to be going to Ikea with two wonderful women (Jess and Emily, you are the reason why I'm not still in Ikea) and I kid you not, they had to keep pulling me back on the path. I would wander off, trying to find a end table, and I would wind up with lamps and pillows. I would try to find a dresser and I would wind up finding TV stands and coffee tables. I would have surely been lost to the Minotaur if Emily and Jess hadn't kept me on the right path. IKEA blatantly flies in the face of a man's need to be an independent rugged individual. So that brings me to point two...

STEP TWO: GO WITH A GIRL!!!! That's all I have to say about that...dudes you need a chick there, for real.

STEP THREE: LEARN HOW TO PALATE SURF! While I couldn't find a Minotar in the bowels of IKEA, what I DID find was the biggest little warehouse I've ever seen. See at IKEA, when you walk around the store you just look at examples of furniture. You don't actually pick out the furniture until you get to the proverbial belly of the IKEA whale. At that point you have to go pick up your (disassembled) furniture, load it onto a huge palate cart, and go check out. But while you may be tempted to toss your stuff on the cart and head out into daylight as soon as possible, take a minute to relish your victory! You've beaten IKEA! Now let loose, hop on that 4'x6' long cart and have someone push you as fast as you can go! While you may get a number of condescending looks from the hired help, there's nothing as liberating as soaring through the narrow warehouse isles at IKEA on a cart that is incredible close to careening out of control. But all jokes aside, it's a blast and it's about the only redeeming thing about going to IKEA other than...

STEP FOUR: ASSEMBLING YOUR FURNITURE!! This is arguably the worst part of IKEA. When I left the store, I had furniture for my entire house. I paid virtually pennies for all of it. And what was even better, I fit it all in my car! I fit: 1 bookshelf, one entertainment center, 2 end tables, one dresser, 2 TV carts, 1 computer stand, 2 lamps, and some bags in my car with room to spare. I felt like the king of the world!

That feeling lasted for about the entire ride home, until I got all the boxes of disassembled furniture in my apartment and was faced with what would be 5 solid hours of furniture construction. To get you through your assembly process, I would recommend having the following utensils:


and what might be yur most important tool ...





Now I'm not one to advocate the abuse af substances, because on many levels it just ain't right. But when your eyes are bloodshot from looking at instructions with no words, your fingers are raw from twisting in screw after screw, and you've put the doors on Benno backwards, a little relief is not a bad thing. Just don't use Andrew as your excuse to be a lush.

So that, ladies and germs, is a little about my last trip to IKEA, and how it radically impacted my life. Now granted the experience was novel, and my apartment looks pretty slammin'...but it's not something I'd like to do more than once a decade. Good luck and Godspeed!!


Watch out for these bad boys when you get lost.