Ikea: Norwegian for Shoot Me Already!

Another weekend, another trip to Ikea, this time to replace the door mats and kid’s rug that we lost on Friday in the flood that besieged our new apartment. It’s gotten to the point where I start to vomit blood at the first hint of the cinnamon-raisin-scent that they spray all over the cash registers on the way out. And those nifty little blue bags they con you into buying every time you leave? They’re not for the environment, you know—they’re marketed solely for me to forget to bring them to the store each time. This is a product designed exclusively to accentuate my looming Alzheimer’s.

Anyway, as I mentioned last week, I’ve been spending time in the clutches of the big box economy of late, thanks to my new residence. It’s amazing the shit you’ll come home with just by stepping into one of these places. I now own a motorized rotisserie for my grill, purchased at Lowe’s, where I went to buy a garbage can. I’ve been threatening to cook my Thanksgiving turkey on the spit this year, but no one takes me seriously. That’s my lot in life—thwarted poultry ambitions.

None of which has anything to do with parenting. Except that in my earlier post on Ikea furniture building, I received a comment from Beta Dad, a regular reader of Dadwagon. Beta—can I call you Beta?—mentioned that he never had any problems putting together Ikea furniture, which he considered rather simple, the fact that he was a licensed contractor with 20 years of building experience notwithstanding.  Harrumph!

He did send along this very funny video, embedded below, which features his brother, I believe, hammering away (amorously) at a balsa-wood dresser.

Enjoy! (That last, superfluous, exclamation point, was for Matt.)

Published by Theodore

Theodore Ross is an editor of Harper’s Magazine. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, Saveur, Tin House, the Mississippi Review, and (of course), the Vietnam News. He grew up in New York City by way of Gulfport, MS, and as a teen played the evil Nazi, Toht, in Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. He lives with his son, J.P. in Brooklyn, and is currently working on a book about Crypto-Jews.

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3 Comments

  1. Sorry. I’m afraid those floating IKEA captions are pretty much a ‘Fight Club’ rip-off.

  2. You just need to take your gozfluken and twist it in the floozik a few times. When it snaps into place, you’ll feel it and before you know it you’ll have a great muszaken for your kitchen.

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