Ikea a la Hook de Rojo

Well it's been entirely too long hasn't it? Who am I kidding? No one is reading this.  I've been spending way too much time complaining about all my corporate urban woes and the new pair of jeans I can't afford because I booked too many vacations this year.

After having several glasses of Pinot Grigio and arguing with myself for far too long about where my new step shelf should be in my far too tiny apartment, I decided there was no better time than to reconnect with my peers.

Ikea. Say it with me. I-KEEEE-Ah.  It ends with relief. Or so that is the allusion that somehow permeates all of our minds right before we decide to take the annoying voyage to one of their may locations.  Let's be honest - no one lives near an IKEA.  They were brilliant enough to put them in several remote locations so the sheer act of traveling to one builds more anticipation than an adolescent game of seven minutes in heaven.

I fell victim to their game today.  Oh yes. On the advice of my friend who is trying to refurbish his lovely studio (I still share an apartment because I'm into 'saving' - or because I'm a drunk and have to feed my habits, one no more valid than the other).  So I log onto IKEA's website and or course it makes it sound so easy to get to each and every one of their locations.  My friend and I decide that we will try the new hot location in Red Hook because there are like thirty five ways to get there and we were already in Brooklyn so how hard could it REALLY be, right?  

I suggest the M train.  M FOR MISTAKE of course.  That shit don't run nowhere fast on the weekends.  But then God came down and told us to try the water taxi downtown which happened to be the utter highlight of my day - I got to see Lady Liberty and sit with fat people for fifteen minutes each way which is a helluva lot more convenient than taking a shuttle from the Trash Authority to the Elizabeth location.  

Anyway I'm all orgasmic at the thought of walking into this amusement park of a monstrosity and then once I walk in it hits me like a tons of bricks. I remember all about what Ikea's really like.

Ikea is sort of like the line to get to America from an obscure border.  Everyone is shuffling around a bunch of junk and not sure where it ends.  And everything is in Spanish which really adds a bit of foreign flare in a Scandinavian landscape. I go salon to salon only to realize that I am surrounded by trash.  I hit the bedding section and feel like I just fucked someone with cheetos breath and tapered jeans.  I go into the kitchen section and pick up forks that bend when I bite on them too hard.  I pass the cafeteria and imagine the diarreah that will strike if I shove a slovic meatball into my gullet.

And so I walk and I walk and I walk, carrying this queer plastic yellow bag stuffed with a $2.49 scented candle and my bottled water, the previous of which I felt obligated to buy until I got to the fake plants with not-a-one thing in my goddamn bag.  

To make matters worse, the person your with always finds something.  So then you wait in line for six hours.  And in my case run back to get beige curtains and trip over a two by four next to a bunk bed on the way (love ya b).

I fucking hate Ikea and there is a reason it sounds like an STD.  The burning feeling before and after just ain't worth it son.

Ghonorkea.