Wipe Your Feet

Why I Love Ikea

an essay

I had never been to Ikea until my friend Allan brought me in the summer of 2005. I moved to the valley after college, and had this seemingly awesome apartment to fill with STUFF, glorious STUFF. I brought almost nothing with me, because my stuff from college was all so cheap and decrepit that it wasn’t worth anything to ship it. The day I got in, I dropped off my cat at my empty apartment and went to Crate and Barrel and dropped some serious change on things like a bed and a sofa, and then threw up my hands and prepared to embrace not having a desk or somewhere to put my stereo or, like, sheets.

Allan came over and tsk-tsked me. He was like, MAYBE YOU SHOULD COME WITH ME TO SWEDEN. I was like, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS. Then he swooped me up in his car and took me to Burbank and so began a love affair that has now matured into a serious and stable marriage. Me and Ikea. For life.

The thing about Ikea that I have had to keep reminding myself is this: it is not the place to get things like desks, media centers, portable closets, or anything you have to assemble. I recognize that this is the point of Ikea, but most of these things (not all, but many) end up ruining your life for 48 hours while you struggle to read the directions, which are all in the Ikean language, and you get so frustrated that you cry sometimes. Then, after all your labors are done, you’re left with a white posterboard desk that wiggles and wobbles even when it’s just got a laptop and a pencil on its laminate top. In fact, Allan’s dad had to come over and disassemble, and then reassemble, my Malms and Stockholms and Besta Burs. I felt pretty low. And then I had to get rid of a lot of it because I couldn’t find the tiny Ikea tools necessary to rebuild it after six months or so of wobbly use. When you move, movers will say “Are you very attached to this?” and you will remember building it, pause, and then say “Naw.”

So, ignore all of that. We learned our lesson. I kind of wanted to give up on Ikea altogether after realizing that you can get a dope mid-century media stand at the Rose Bowl flea market for the same price as a Bjornholmen, and you don’t have to build it. It just arrives. But the other thing Allan had introduced me to was the Ikea meatballs, which seem truly disgusting (me to my mom: And then you put on the jam… my mom: THE JAM? me: Yeah, for the meatballs? my mom: I’m hanging up now. me: but you need it for the gravy!), but are, in fact, especially to people who have some kind of weird soft spot for cafeteria food, really really really awesome.

The other thing that Ikea does RITE is sheets, towels, pillows, throws, rugs, and lights. There’s no assembly, and you can get a whole set for a queen-size bed for like $30. One day, I will be lounging on a 400-thread-count pima cotton duvet cover, painting my nails with leopard-fur nail polish and counting my multitudes of foxfur eyelash extensions, and then maybe I’ll take my sheets to the cleaners where they fold them and at least pretend to care about the care of bedding. Right now, I want like six sets of sheets that I wash on hot and throw away after 2 years because I am sick of them and they’ve become scratchy. Ikea bedding is for these days, this TWILIGHT OF YOUTH. I want to be able to eat In N’ Out off sheets that cost four dollars while I watch television on my computer and wonder if I can pay my rent, and I can do that now.

Another thing. Cookware. Ikea tupperware is cheaper than you can get at CVS. I bought a wok today for $7. Pint glasses, plates, tea cups, and cookbooks. Can I get a pound-pound (pound-pound!)?

Also: lighting (globes with dimmers, no assembly). Also: desk chairs (this chair is not super-cheap but I am still madly in love with it, and it was worth the extra scrillz). Their leather stuff isn’t too shoddy either.

Now they just need to start selling clothes for young, carefree women in their late 20’s, so I can stop feeling the piercing shame of realizing I am not, in fact, “forever” 21.