Swedish Design and the Art of Not Lighting Oneself on Fire

As I'm getting ready to set up a home office, I need a desk and a chair. Ones that are comfortable, but I don't want to spend a ton of money. Plus, it has to go up to the third floor, so that's limiting in itself. As a result, we decided to make a trip to Ikea. On a Saturday. Afternoon. On a really nice warm (for winter) sunny day.


Idiots. We are idiots.


I forgot that in exchange for clean Swedish design at affordable prices, you have trade in your sanity.


I also forgot the cardinal rules of Ikea:

1. Go during the week. In the morning. If you must go on the weekend, be there for the opening of the store. Otherwise, it's mayhem. And, you can't leave your kid in Småland for more than 45 minutes on the weekend - it's double that on weekdays. That leaves you trying to harangue a small child from darting away into the merchandise, pulling throw blankets, lapdesks, extension cords, plastic cups, and numerous stuffed animals out of bins and begging, at full volume, with more than a little whine thrown in, to pleasepleaseplease buy this. Much easier to carry around the Cheesecake Factory-style beeper and stroll at your leisure. You can even sit down on an EKTORP TULLSTA and have a nice minute to yourself.
2. Figure out how long you think you will be there, then multiply by 2. If you're there on a weekend, use a multiplier of 3. There's a Madeline L'Engle-worthy wrinkle in time inside that big blue box. Nothing is at it seems.
3. Don't go hungry. Sure, you want to avail yourself of the cheap Swedish meatballs, or promise yourself that there will be a cup of decent coffee and a more than decent cinnamon roll awaiting you after checkout. However, see item 2. You may die before you get there.
4. Recognize that Ikea is the land of slow walkers and Sunday drivers and all of that will conspire to make you want to scream, loudly, for everyone to just get the hell out of your way. But you can't. And you shouldn't. Especially not in front of your five-year-old. (The baby, however, totally won't remember or judge you so feel free.)
5. Make sure there's beer or wine or whatever beverage takes some of the pain away in the fridge at home for afterwards. I don't really need to explain that one.

So now I have a lovely new home office, which will make the return to work much more enjoyable. But it's in pieces. In boxes. Heavy boxes. In the car. In the garage. Three staircases from where it will eventually be built.

Yeah, I'm not going to think about that right now.