Ikea Threat

This weekend, the last remaning American who hadn’t shopped at Ikea (me) took the plunge. America’s assimilation into the Ikeain empire is now complete.

And I’m very worried.

It all started when I researched bookcases on the web, and discovered that there were really only three choices: (1) outrageously expensive solid wood bookcases, worth more than the books I’d be putting on their shelves, (2) surprisingly inexpensive particle-board bookcases whose shelves deflected approximately six inches for each sheet of paper you put on them, and (3) Ikea bookcases made of particle-board, veneer, and some reinforcements that were modestly priced and quite strong.

So (with a friend to lean on) down the hill I drove, on Saturday, to the “local” Ikea store in Mission Valley. I was expecting it to be a nightmare, but it was far worse than I imagined. This store was designed by a sadist to trap you in turbulent traffic, I believe to force you to look at their wares as you try to get around the mom with three squalling babies who decided to change a diaper in the middle of the narrow path. This so-call “show room” was absolutely packed with people who uniformly (and unaccountably) seemed to be having fun. I suspect they were all Ikea employees with the explicit job of keeping me in the showroom as long as possible. I didn’t try this, but I’ll bet if I offered to buy something — anything — the horde would have parted to let me through to it.

Eventually, and with a newly acquired headache, I managed to figure out that you can’t buy anything in the “showroom”. Instead, you have to find your way to the “self service” section on the first floor. This place is almost impossible to find unless you follow the signs, and if you do that you end up meandering (very slowly) through the entire “show room” (which is about 250 acres in extent). But my friend and I eventually made it to the self-service area, located the bookcases I wanted, paid for them, and made our escape from Ikea.

I thought that was the end of it, but in fact the nightmare was just beginning.

I’ve purchased many pieces of factory-made particle-board furniture over the years. Every business I’ve had, and all my home offices, have been furnished with such pieces. Every piece I’ve ever purchased in the past, no matter whether it was the cheapest crap at the bargain store, or the top-of-the-line crap at Office Depot, shared some common traits. So I knew that I could look forward to an interesting and challenging experience putting my new bookcases together, as they were of the same ilk.

And this is where I discovered the real Ikea threat: they are out to destroy the manhood of America. Ordinarily it takes a real tool-bearing, foul-swearing man to put together a piece of particle-board furniture. The man (it always seems to be a man!) assembling the furniture must face head-on and conquer one threat after another. Usually it starts with missing parts, which the man must synthesize from whatever is lying about the home and yard. If it takes gnawing a branch off a tree, that’s what you do. Then there’s the extra parts, which forces the man to exercise extreme creativity to find a place for. Then there’s the particle-board parts that don’t fit right, which requires the man to break out the heavy tools (sometimes including jackhammers and chain saws) to force them into place. The aesthetics of the furniture usually suffer in the process. But when the process is finished, the man knows he’s accomplished something, well, manly — he’s taken the random collection of parts sold to him as a piece of furniture, and constructed something with them that’s usable, if not pretty.

Ikea has ruined this.

I bought five bookcases from Ikea. There wasn’t a single extra part. There wasn’t a single missing part. There wasn’t a single part that didn’t fit perfectly. The instructions were all pictures — I didn’t even have to read them. There was no manly challenge at all. My dogs could easily have built these bookcases and got it right.

Ikea is destroying the manhood of America.