“I only need a bed-frame, mattress, and a desk, so it should be a short trip” was my first misconception regarding the Swedish, horse meatball-serving, relationship-ending human maze that is IKEA. There is no such thing as a short trip to IKEA.

I had just moved into my first apartment, and after the third day of sleeping on a mat made of sweatshirts, I decided it was high time I purchased a bed that didn’t have serve dual purpose of being my wardrobe.

I enlisted my Mom’s help because, as every millennial will tell you, moms know everything. We rolled out at around noon, our suburban van empty and hopes high.

The first mistake we made was thinking that the kindly old woman greeting us at the gates of IKEA was sincere when she said the layout of the store was simple and the collection process easy. That kindly old woman is IKEA's first in the line of deceits designed to force you to take up residence in IKEA and live the rest of your life in one of their color-coordinated rooms. That’s how employment works at IKEA. That man laying on the yellow IKEA Klippan Sofa isn’t a bored husband, he is Frank, a man two years away from IKEA retirement, trying to catch a little shut-eye in the privacy of his home.

Once inside, armed with our paper booklet and pencil, we eagerly began to write down the item number of every damn desk we saw. Another thing I learned about IKEA is that the Swedes are keenly aware of the obesity epidemic sweeping America, and thus they arbitrarily place desks within the building so that you need to speed-walk from room to room, reminding yourself why you like desk #1029384 more than #28154319.

My mom and I exited the showroom, down but not out, and continued onto the supposedly easier second step of the IKEA process. We secured a cart, or what I affectionately refer to as shin-busters, and began the search.

IKEA loves boxes. Small ones, big ones, long ones, thin ones. A desk which I assumed would come in two boxes (the top and the legs) came in a whopping seven boxes. This was only made sweeter by the shin-buster’s inability to turn and IKEA's racks of wine glasses, which are naturally stacked between aisles.

So we had collected our boxes and gained a second shin-buster. We were almost out. It had been five hours and my Mom was getting hangry. Just as we were reaching the cashier, hidden around the corner was a clearance section; IKEA's final nail in the coffin. It is here that I would like to encourage every IKEA customer to begin shopping, where everything is already assembled and undoubtedly was cast aside as a painful memory of the relationship it destroyed through its 12 boxes and wordless assembly instructions.

We emerged into the sunlight, pale and full of meatballs with lingonberry sauce, which is best eaten fast and sans questions.

All things said and done, I got a great-looking bed frame, desk, and mattress for an absurdly low price and can now sleep soundly on the boxes. Assembly is a problem for future me.