IKEA
Between spending what seemed like three straight years at IKEA, today, and coming home to play with the new MacBook, I feel like the only font I'll ever be able to read for the rest of my life is Arial. If this keeps up, I'll actually be thinking in Arial. Whatever happened to Times New Roman? That was the font I used all throughout high school and most of college? Until, that is, I realized Arial could fill a page a little faster.
Anyway, the Houston IKEA (is that supposed to be all caps?) is like a three-hour ride you pay good money to get onto and, once on, are forced to see it through to the exhausted and bitter end. Like I imagine all IKEAs are, it's very cleverly designed so that once you ascend the escalator to the showroom floor, you are forced to walk through the entire labyrinth-like building similar to one of those haunted mansions from when we were kids. Only instead of strobe lights and corn syrup blood, it's plastic desk lamps called "Klörm" and Chinese people. One staircase even has a sign painted on the floor telling you that in one week, an average of 27,000 people cross that very landing. Not to sound overly right-wing Republican, especially since my only language is English, but I wonder what percentage of those 27,000 people can atually read that sign. After that, it dumps you out into the warehouse where you can pick up your selections, followed by the checkout/food court area where you're handed your Swedish sandwich cookies, pay for your stuff, then load your car from about a quarter mile from the designated area where you're allowed to roll your carts once you've exited the building. By this time, you've aged several years, forgotten your children's names and have become engaged to a Korean woman you met in the textiles department.
Alright, that might be pushing it.
Still, we did manage to find a floor pillow large enough to support a Labrador retriever - which brings me to a somewhat major announcement:
Meet Abbott.
He's a pretty good kid who's learning the ropes, though still quite toothy. He already fetches and can bring down and bite terrified four-year-olds in the face who run screaming from him in the park. I know this because it happened. Of course, he's just playing, but we're trying to teach him it's okay to play-bite, but not to jump on people.
As for that dog pillow, he already got too excited and urinated on it. It was his first "accident" in a while. I guess that means he likes it.
Anyway, the Houston IKEA (is that supposed to be all caps?) is like a three-hour ride you pay good money to get onto and, once on, are forced to see it through to the exhausted and bitter end. Like I imagine all IKEAs are, it's very cleverly designed so that once you ascend the escalator to the showroom floor, you are forced to walk through the entire labyrinth-like building similar to one of those haunted mansions from when we were kids. Only instead of strobe lights and corn syrup blood, it's plastic desk lamps called "Klörm" and Chinese people. One staircase even has a sign painted on the floor telling you that in one week, an average of 27,000 people cross that very landing. Not to sound overly right-wing Republican, especially since my only language is English, but I wonder what percentage of those 27,000 people can atually read that sign. After that, it dumps you out into the warehouse where you can pick up your selections, followed by the checkout/food court area where you're handed your Swedish sandwich cookies, pay for your stuff, then load your car from about a quarter mile from the designated area where you're allowed to roll your carts once you've exited the building. By this time, you've aged several years, forgotten your children's names and have become engaged to a Korean woman you met in the textiles department.
Alright, that might be pushing it.
Still, we did manage to find a floor pillow large enough to support a Labrador retriever - which brings me to a somewhat major announcement:
Meet Abbott.
He's a pretty good kid who's learning the ropes, though still quite toothy. He already fetches and can bring down and bite terrified four-year-olds in the face who run screaming from him in the park. I know this because it happened. Of course, he's just playing, but we're trying to teach him it's okay to play-bite, but not to jump on people.
As for that dog pillow, he already got too excited and urinated on it. It was his first "accident" in a while. I guess that means he likes it.
posted by Clint at Sunday, August 13, 2006
3 comments
