Marshmellow Fluff

I hate Ikea.

It isn’t so much about the furniture, or that you have to struggle to fit huge flat “easy to load” boxes in the back of your compact car.  Or about the fact that I always seem to have “spare” parts left over after putting together a desk with cryptic instructions. Or even about the instructions themselves, which seem to scream, “Hey Americans, I am pretty sure most of you cannot read, so I’m going to make it easy for you by making no-worded instructions with crude illustrations so you can see, step by step, how dumb you really are.  And, it certainly isn’t about their food, which at $1.00 a pop for a soft serve ice cream cone and $.50 per hot dog, who could think twice about how the Swed’s think we are as stupid as we are poor.  I hate Ikea because it is a constant reminder of how poor I am.  Ikea, the mega warehouse store,  the Swedish version of Wal-Mart in size keeps calling me back, because it is within my financial means.  Surely, the mark of adulthood isn’t having children but the passage of the moment you no longer have to assemble your own furniture and I am still too young and too poor.  I hate Ikea because I have bruises on my elbows and on my shins from the bookshelves that I put together this weekend with no help, even though my husband urged me to, “Please wait until I get home, so I can help you.”  I ignored his request, even though he further cautioned, “I know you CAN do it by yourself but I am not sure how well our walls will fare.”  And, he was right because in certain spots, our hallway wall looks like my shin.

Still, I dream, of the day I can buy expensive adult furniture.  The kind that comes pre-assembled and delivered by, what I imagine to be, men dressed in suits that say fancy things like, “G’day madam, we have your delivery, shall we bring it in while you retire to your study?”  And, when that day comes, I will surely be purchasing my items from Restoration Hardware, the place rich people spend their hard-earned fortunes on furniture like this: