Ikea World Order

Originally published at Searching for the Young Soul Rebel. You can comment here or there.

The room-mate and I went to Ikea today. I'm convinced that Ikea is a plot of the Swedish government for world domination.

We went there cos his mother said that the meatballs in the Ikea restaurant were really good — but we were disappointed to see that the "restaurant" was actually a canteen with a few very basic items — and cos Scott read this news story where somebody at the Vatican claimed that this really innocent photo in the latest Ikea catalogue of two men on a couch in a drawing room "endorsed homosexuality" and the Ikea company head said "Yes! As a matter of fact, they are gay! People living in the modern world don't have a problem with that!"

On our way out of the canteen area — cos it's designed in a way to make you forget the way you came in — we passed through a bunch of stuff and I wound up getting a lot of crap for $20. OK, it was all crap that I kind of needed anyway, but the fact that they've designed the store in such a way that you have to pass through this all, and these supposed "shortcuts" are actually few and far-between, meant I wound up getting a bunch of crap.

On the good side of Ikea, they carry a mechanical alarm clock and their mechanical alarm clock is $7 and has all-metal gears. The only plastic in it is the face. The old mechanical I had cost $10 at K-Mart in 1999 and is full of plastic gears.

Wait? Good side? IT'S PART OF THEIR PLOT! It's all a part of their plot, I tells ya'. A pack of eight wooden hangers for $3.50, compared to Target's price of $8 for six -- Swedish government plot!

The Swedes will take over either by our willingness to succumb to the Ikean lure of low cost quality home furnishings or by entrapping us in the labyrinthine hell that is their store design.