Dear Ikea,
First of all you know I don't mean that title right? I just have this thing going on with all my blogs and I'm gonna stick with it. You know I love you.
It's just that lately I don't think you're contributing to this relationship between us as much as I am. It's just take, take, take from you.
I think you know I've recently moved house and I think you're just taking advantage of that fact. First it was the conveniently timed new catalogue in the letterbox of my old place and THEN the letterbox of the new one. It's not fair to stalk me like that. We needed time apart and you're just targeting me while I'm vulnerable.
You knew that the day I had to leave the world's most amazing cheese slicer behind with my old housemate that I'd be running straight back into your arms for another. But instead of just a cheese slicer, I left your flat-packed world armed with things I never even knew I couldn't live without. Colourful bendy straws are an everyday necessity now, do you know what that plastic is doing to the planet!? I guess I could make up with it by watering the garden with all the excess water I have after making salad, because I now have the dryest lettuce on the street thanks to that salad spinner you wouldn't let me walk past.
I hate that you lull me into such a false sense of ability too. I look at your perfectly boxed up furniture and you make me lie to myself and think 'yes, I can build that Expedit Shelving Unit' but you know what Ikea?! YOU KNOW WHAT?! I can't!! And I hate you for it. I hate you for the allen keys, and I hate you for the stupid stick man that smiles mockingly at me from the pages of your wordless instruction booklets, and I hate you for the stupid bits of wood that pop out of one end when I'm trying to hammer in the other end with a shoe.
How do you do it Ikea? How do you make me want to have a colour co-ordinated, 'birch' themed bedroom? How do you make me want to bleach all my clothes white just so they won't clash with my perfectly organised wardrobe accessories? How do you make me feel inadequate because I don't have a spicerack? Are you putting mind-control drugs into your $1 hotdogs? Because while that is geniusely evil and a cleverly marketable plan, it's just not fair.
One day I'll work out how to resist all your carefully laid out traps. I'll be able to walk straight past your 3 pack of scissors for $4, I'll ignore those stackable cane baskets that I have nothing to put in, I'll avoid the home organisation section where I always stand contemplating if I need that mini ironing board even though I can't remember the last time I used an iron. I'll hold my breath in the scented candle displays and I'll repeat my mantra - "I do not need a lantern floor lamp, I do not need a lantern floor lamp." And once I've mastered the ability to do all this, I'll be able to head straight to what I really need....
Novelty ice - cube trays.
