How I Lost My Sanity At Ikea

www.marriedtothesea.com

With my impending moving day looming ever precariously over my head like the Sword of Damocles, I realized the time for cheap-ass, poorly-built Swedish furniture was nigh. While Mama Feist has what has been psychologically described as "a raging boner" for Ikea, I've never actually been inside the store, my experiences constructed mostly out of theory and word of mouth (which still makes it more stable than 90% of their coffee tables). Still, I was in desperate need of modest furnishings with incomprehensible names, and so I boarded my bucket of a car and hauled my pasty slacker ass off to Ikea.

What a terrible fucking idea that was.

The moment I entered the store, my ear drums were assaulted with the banshee wails of screaming toddlers, banished to wallow in the pit of plastic balls for all of eternity...or until their parental units were finished loading up on futons and ottomans. Whichever came first, really. Although it was a tad disconcerting to see a daycare center in the middle of a furniture store. Mostly because I'm faily sure I saw the exact same playpen in another unmentionable hell-hole, Chuck E. Cheese.

After getting my mitts one a needlessly large shopping cart, I set out on the first of many quests in Ikea: getting a six-piece dining set. A simple enough task for even the most obnoxious and troglodytic of newlywed yuppies. Although granted, I am not what you would call an "exceptionally bright" person, or even an "adequately intelligent" person. Fuck, even "Hey shit-for-brains" would be something of a stretch. Naturally, I would (and did!) find a way to fuck this up.

The exact details of the trip are shady at best. I could have been in there for five minutes, or for five hours.* My shopping cart and I were bounced back and fourth, from one show room to the next. By the fifth time I found myself staring down a row of affordable TV stands, I was starting to lose my patience.

By the half-hour mark, I was starting to show visible signs of homicidal rage. I hadn't eaten anything that morning, I had a massive Charlie Horse thanks to a septugenarian with a shopping cart full of pots and pans, and the now universal screeching of children was severing the final string holding me from falling into the never ending pit of schizophrenia. I had to find those fucking dishes pronto, homeskillet, else I should end up being the first person to be charged with a Hit-and-Run in a furniture-laden shopping cart.

When I finally managed to procure a hasty dining set, I made my way to the check-out counter, a labyrinthian feat at best. While Ikea had thoughtfully provided you with a path and accompanying signs, I was getting te idea that the last thing Ikea wanted you to do was to actually LEAVE, as the acursed trail lead you through (quite literally) every single department there. The lines themselves were a veritable mile-long marathonin order to get to the actual register. I had the feeling that was what it felt like to work with Sky Net when it became self-aware.

With my kitchen set paid for, I still had the matter of hunger to attend to. Would I dare spring for the inordinately inexpensive hot dogs, or would I wait until home. I decided to wait, as consuming one of these would be the final step in my shameless pandering to the Swedes.

And that's how I lost my mind at Ikea. The story of how I managed to lost my mind in an orgiastic sea of wood, low-prices and incomprehensible Swedish names. While I doubt anyone will ever be able to fully explain the penomenon. Watch this clip and feel the pain as your brain slowly rots out of your ear canals.

*It was actually an hour, but I'm Irish. We tend to cram our stories full of bullshit just to fuck wit you.