IKEA

Now that I live in a big urban area, I just had to go to the ultimate home furnishings store. IKEA. From Sweden or something. It's rubbish. First thing you do is get whisked up two different elevators to the "showroom". It's basically the same thing as you see in the home department of a JC Penney's, only the stuff is less comfortable and there's more of it. Then, if you like something you see, you don't tell a sales rep who can assist you. No, you write it down on a pad so you can retrieve it on a pallet yourself later. Exciting.

Once you get done milling about the upper area with your mesmerized friends, you should go to the cafeteria. There, they give you such elegant dishes as mac 'n' cheese and salad. If you're feeling particularly rich that day, you might even get some Swedish meatballs. Once you've forced down your Plate O' Crap, you are reminded to bus your own table because it helps them keep the prices down. What? It's a cafeteria, like the food court or Taco Bell or the campus dining hall. What makes their policy of taking care of your own tray so special?

Then, excitement of all excitements, you get to go downstairs to the kitchen & bath area. There are towels and wine racks and...I don't know...endless miles of crap. In a basement without windows. Like a casino, they keep you there as long as they can and eliminate the distinction between night and day. You get to waste your whole life deciding on whether to buy square or round plates.

Eventually, I bought a fairly decent 18-pack of dishes and a $1 alarm clock and a 50c towel. In three hours. And I spent $7 on a bad lunch. There's not a thing at IKEA that you couldn't get at Target or Bed Bath & Beyond or OfficeMax or something. Why on earth this place got such a reputation is out of my realm of knowledge. Why people flock from Rhode Island and Maine to flow through this store like herded cattle is beyond me.

Please, please, save yourself from wasting a half day of your life or more. Go to Tuesday Morning, for all I care. Just stay the heck away from IKEA. Even better, quit buying things.

Wow, maybe I'm a little more Tyler Durden than I thought.