Mazes of furniture. Endless boxes arranged in elaborate aisles. Meatballs. IKEA is the greatest place in the world. I could spend an unlimited amount of time wandering around, just experiencing the joy of being in IKEA. Everything goes really well until you find your way out of the maze of furniture and paper rulers and begin the hellish process of assembling your own little piece of Swedish engineering.
1. Let it all out
If you think that things will get easier once you're out of the cardboard jungle, you are very wrong. Just taking everything out of the impossibly shaped boxes will give you a migraine; why so many different pieces of cardboard?
2. Break out the reading glasses
IKEA instruction booklets are approximately the length of the seventh Harry Potter book and are far less entertaining. Bonus points if you can properly pronounce your Swedish series name.
3. Let the anger begin
The first target of your anger? The smug little stick figure man who tells you to find a friend with a pencil and to assemble your furniture on a carpet. If this little cartoon were real, I would have definitely punched the positive, can-do smile off his face by now.
4. Got wood?
How are thousands of tiny dowels shoved into poorly drilled holes going to support the weight of my clothes? My dog once stepped on a dowel while I was assembling furniture and it broke so easily; I have very little faith in this system.
5. But I'm not Bob the Builder?
You can assume that every box of IKEA furniture will require you to use a tool you do not have. Improvisation has always worked well for me, but I would not be surprised if, at some time in the future, my bed falls apart beneath me while I'm sleeping.
6. Twinsies
EVERY STICK-LIKE OBJECT LOOKS THE SAME AS OTHER STICK-LIKE OBJECT IN A BLACK AND WHITE DRAWING. There are so many solutions to this problem. I have wasted hours of my life trying to complete a step with the wrong piece. I will never get that time back, and for that, I blame the entire country of Sweden.
7. Wobble baby, wobble
Everything from IKEA looks like it's about to come crashing to the ground right up until the last step. It usually comes together, but it's just slightly nerve wracking.
