I went to IKEA this morning for the express purpose of buying a single one-day-only sale item. It was sold out by the time I got there, but that wasn’t the problem. Sellouts happen, and I could have tried to get there earlier. The problem is that the item was advertised as one per household, and there were clearly more than a few people who were getting around that. I don’t want to hear about how they were all honest people and I am wrong to assume that they did not in fact live in separate households. When you see what appears to be a husband and wife with FIVE of the damn things, and no other people getting into their vehicle along with the merchandise… exactly how would you guess I am making a wrong assumption? I’m really interested to hear the interesting fiction that might spawn.
But enough about that minor annoyance and on to my real topic. I don’t get the whole appeal of IKEA. There are things there that I like well enough to buy, and also things that don’t seem any better than cheap crap from WalMart or Value City. I just don’t get why so many people are so enamored of the place. Their whole idea of “experience shopping” leaves me cold. I get that the idea of the annoying layout and lack of escape routes is to run you past as many things you might think about purchasing as possible. And I guess it must work on a certain percentage of the shopping population. It didn’t work on me, but it did annoy me and I did not buy a single thing. The food at the restaurant part did smell good, though. I didn’t buy any food either as the slowly wandering suburbanites were getting on my nerves.
That is another thing that really bothers me, but it’s certainly not unique to IKEA. I truly hate shopping so I am probably less tolerant of the slow meandering gazers than most people. I don’t mind that they might actually enjoy shopping and want to take their time about it. I do mind, and very seriously, that many of this type of shopper seem to have absolutely no concept that someone behind them might not appreciate how slowly they are moving if they are also blocking every inch of space along that path. Waiting for some of these shoppers was like waiting for a glacier, only less interesting to look at.
I feel better now that I’ve vented about all of that. I am glad that most of my shopping can be accomplished online which saves me from these experiences, and saves you all from having to read about it.