Eric D. Snider

Artificially Swedened

Snide Remarks #574

"Artificially Swedened"

by Eric D. Snider

Published in EricDSnider.com on March 24, 2008

If there's a name for the style in which my apartment is decorated, it's Homeless Person Squatting in an Abandoned Tenement. This is fine with me. Sure, I could spend thousands of dollars on nice furniture and decor. But on the other hand, no I couldn't, because I don't have thousands of dollars. I have the essential items -- bed, chair, table, piano, life-size plastic dog, Ron Burgundy bobblehead doll, flashlight, etc. -- and I'm happy with that.

Or at least I thought I was happy. Then an Ikea store opened in Portland and I realized how truly miserable I was.

It is a major event whenever the Swedish furniture juggernaut deigns to opens a new store somewhere, and Portland was no exception. Everyone caught Ikeamania! People lined up to be among the first shoppers. Local news agencies covered the story from the angle of "Boy, there sure are a lot of people excited about this!," and of course that coverage gave Ikea free advertising, which resulted in more people getting excited about it, which made the news agencies cover the story even more fervently, and the circle of life continued.

I did not visit the new Ikea right away, preferring to wait until the crowds of zealots had finished their pilgrimages before I braved it. In the meantime, I began to notice things about my apartment that I should probably improve. For example, there was no place to sit. I mean, I had chairs at the kitchen table, but when it came to relaxing and having guests over for conversation, all I had was my ugly yellow chair and the LoveSac. The LoveSac will comfortably hold two occupants, but they must be occupants who are very familiar with each other and like to cuddle. That minimizes the potential guest list.

So I decided it was time to buy a couch to replace the one I'd given away when I moved here from my last apartment. Unfortunately, given the size of my current space, and the size of the LoveSac (i.e., gigantic), I knew I could not have both. Getting a couch would mean getting rid of the LoveSac.

A LoveSac (not mine).

O LoveSac! I purchased you six years ago, almost to the day, because you were new and innovative and comfortable! And also because Luscious Malone and Tanny Tantan talked me into it, even though I couldn't afford you! Your dear price remained on my credit card balance for months, maybe years!

O LoveSac! How many hours did Luscious or Tanny or I or some combination of us sit upon you? How many guests at Oscar parties and other gatherings rushed to re-shape you with their own buttocks before you were claimed and re-shapen by another?

O LoveSac! When my other friend Lisa was pregnant, which was usually, she preferred to fling her bloated self onto you more than any other piece of furniture, because only you, LoveSac, adjusted to fit the contours of her massive body, cradling her like a womb -- like the very womb which inside her then was heavy-laden!

O LoveSac! I am sorry to have gotten rid of you so unceremoniously via Craigslist, where less than two hours after posting my ad I was shoving you into the back of some soccer mom's SUV. Surely you deserved a better fate than to wind up in a suburban teenage boy's bedroom, where heaven only knows what indignities will befall you.

I salute your memory, LoveSac. You were indeed a sac of love.

* * *

Before Luscious Malone and I made our trip to Ikea, I went online and determined exactly what I wanted to buy. I didn't want to make any impulse purchases. My impulses are not to be trusted.

In addition to the most inexpensive love seat Ikea sells, I had my eye on a new desk and bookcase. My current desk was massive and cheap, having been purchased at Wal-Mart in 2001 and already starting to disintegrate, while my bookcase, though slightly newer and from Pier 1, had always been flimsy and precarious. I didn't exactly need a new one -- it's not like the books were actively falling off the shelves -- but hey, Ikea has a bookcase for $19.99. At those prices, I couldn't afford not to buy one!

Luscious and I test-drove all these items in the Ikea showroom and found them acceptable. Of course, one of the fun things about Ikea is that they give their products made-up Swedish-sounding names. So my love seat was actually called a klobo, my desk was a johan, and my bookcase was a flärke. The klobo, johan, and flärke are sturdy, well-designed pieces of furniture, and like all of your finest furniture, they come in a box and you have to put them together. That's how it's possible to make impulse buys at Ikea. You're about to check out and you think, "Hey, you know, I should grab a box of bed before I go."

But I was strong and did not buy anything not on my list. Klobo, johan, flärke, that's it. OK, and a footstool, because it was only 20 bucks, and I'd been putting my feet up on a stereo speaker. So klobo, johan, flärke, and solsta pällbo, that was it. Sure, I was tempted by the pflüng, and the poorg, and the velm, and the jarkolg, and the glaven -- who doesn't need a glaven? -- but I remained steadfast. It takes more than just a handsome and stylish klarng to make me go off my budget!

With some wrangling, we got all the stuff into Luscious Malone's Jeep and from there into my apartment, where I spent the rest of the day assembling it like the brawny man I am. I had to get rid of my old desk and bookcase, too. The bookcase wasn't worth trying to sell, so I just set it outside on the curb, where it disappeared within an hour, probably because someone thought they were stealing it. The desk was even more worthless, so I took it apart and put the individual pieces in the garbage can. That I was able to do this at all was proof of the desk's shoddiness. As a rule, you should not be able to dismantle a major piece of furniture with your bare hands.

And now, suddenly, my apartment is more homey and inviting! It has been Ikeacized, at least partially, and already I feel more like having guests over for a book club or a fondue party. Or both! Why not! The sky's the limit, now that there's an Ikea in town! Am I going to take full advantage of it? You bet your klärb I am.

Comments & Reaction:

There are two additional jokes that I would have made in this column if I were still writing in Utah for a mostly Mormon audience. One would have been to compare people's reaction to a new Ikea being built to their reaction when a new temple is built: "We used to have to travel so far, and now there's one nearby! We're so blessed!" And so on. That joke would have been hilarious.

The other joke would have been to say that since the LoveSac can only seat two people if they cuddle with each other, it doesn't really work for when the home teachers come by. That joke, too, would have been hilarious.

If you are unacquainted with the joys of the LoveSac, you can peruse the website here. They have stores across the country now, but the very first one -- and the one where I bought mine -- was at the Gateway in Salt Lake City. The inventor of the LoveSac was a University of Utah grad.

In addition to being a loyal LoveSac customer, I was at one point almost an employee. Someone from their offices in Salt Lake City contacted me a few years ago about possibly writing a regular "Snide Remarks"-type column for their newsletter. The idea wasn't that the column would be about LoveSacs, but that it would be generally amusing to the types of people who own LoveSacs, i.e., um, regular people, I guess. I met with a LoveSac guy at their SLC headquarters (where much of the office furniture is indeed LoveSac-based) and discussed it, but they wound up going a different direction with the newsletter. I note that their website could still use a good copy editor, so maybe they'll hire me for that.

If you are curious to know what my new Ikea stuff looks like, here's the klobo, the johan, the flärke, and the solsta pällbo.

Throwing around a lot of fake Scandinavian-sounding words makes me feel like Rose on "The Golden Girls." Anyone else have the same sensation? Anyone?

SnideCast intro and outro: "Dancing Queen," by ABBA.

This item has 45 comments

Matt says:
March 24, 2008 at 12:08 am
I was just waiting for the Simpsons quote:

Mom, no! Everyone at school picks on the pöpli kids--even I do. I just hate them so much.
Jenn says:
March 24, 2008 at 12:11 am
Oh great....just when I was beginning to become immune to the charms of the newly built IKEA store in Bluffdale (which I have to pass everytime I have to take something from Payson to SLC to my lazy sister who can't drive it herself!! So says the stupid sister who does it!!)....you go & write an article praising the wonders of IKEA!!! Darn you Snider! Now I have to go , because my furniture is all from Wal-Mart...purchased with my wonderful 10% discount instead of the actual money they should be paying me!! ;)
elsalgal says:
March 24, 2008 at 12:38 am
Ah, yes. Ikeamania. I remember when the Ikea opened in Bucharest. I, too stayed away until the crowds dissipated. My biggest beef with Ikea is that I always feel trapped when I'm in there. I know exactly what I want, but I have to take a tour of the entire store before I can escape. Yes, there are short cuts, but they are usually so difficult to find that its just faster to take the tour. What a pain.
Eli says:
March 24, 2008 at 12:47 am
We live in Sweden and call IKEA the swedish Wal-Mart. Don't expect your johan or flärke to last much longer than your desk or bookcase. It may be designed in Sweden but it is still built in China. Probably at the same factory as the Wal-mart furniture.
memikeyounot says:
March 24, 2008 at 12:48 am
I'm in Las Vegas and for some odd reason they haven't put an Ikea here yet, but I lived in Utah most my life, and go back 2-3 times a year, so I was happy to visit the one in Draper last weekend. I bought a Benno just last weekend on a trip to SLC--$69.99(the catalog shipping price is $118.00). I love it for my new TV.

I made a special trip to LA couple of years ago to get some stuff for my new condo, and spent about $250 on kitchen and bathroom stuff and a small dining table and couldn't fit much more in my car for the drive back to LV.

I too love the names of all the stuff--I read somewhere that they are named after the designers but I'm too lazy to google it.
Lane says:
March 24, 2008 at 12:49 am
I love Ikea. They used to have a $99 klobo that I almost bought at one point. I think it may have been exactly the same only without the legs on it.. Or maybe it was exactly the same only cheaper.

Either way, great store.

And that LoveSac psalm made me a little emotional.
memikeyounot says:
March 24, 2008 at 12:51 am
....so then I had to find out more about the names: this is from Wikipedia so ....

Product names

IKEA products are identified by single word names. Most of the names are Swedish in origin. Although there are some notable exceptions, most product names are based on a special naming system developed by IKEA.[3]

* Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames (for example: Klippan)
* Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian place names
* Dining tables and chairs: Finnish place names
* Bookcase ranges: Occupations
* Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays
* Kitchens: grammatical terms, sometimes also other names
* Chairs, desks: men's names
* Materials, curtains: women's names
* Garden furniture: Swedish islands
* Carpets: Danish place names
* Lighting: terms from music, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, seasons, months, days, boats, nautical terms
* Bedlinen, bed covers, pillows/cushions: flowers, plants, precious stones; words related to sleep, comfort, and cuddling
* Children's items: mammals, birds, adjectives
* Curtain accessories: mathematical and geometrical terms
* Kitchen utensils: foreign words, spices, herbs, fish, mushrooms, fruits or berries, functional descriptions
* Boxes, wall decoration, pictures and frames, clocks: colloquial expressions, also Swedish place names
Lowdogg says:
March 24, 2008 at 7:11 am
I love Ikea, but I hate Ikea.
cincinnatus says:
March 24, 2008 at 7:21 am
I thought Love Sac went out of business.
Randy Tayler says:
March 24, 2008 at 7:55 am
Sheldon, a favorite comic of mine, had this to say about Ikea: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/070422.html

I can't abide Ikea. I've tried a couple times, but I just feel like the layout of that store is hostile. Those automatic doors open, and I hear myself say "I've got a baaaad feeling about this...."

In invariably leave feeling angry. And empty-handed. I can't buy from a store that makes me angry, however great the prices are.
Mike says:
March 24, 2008 at 8:33 am
LoveSac does have a solution if a couch is what you need, check out:

http://www.lovesac.com/sactionals.asp
AbuMaryam says:
March 24, 2008 at 8:49 am
Have you ever used the "Ask Anna" Automated Online Assistant on the IKEA website? You can ask her anything and she will respond. I just typed "are you stupid?" to which she replied "I am not designed to understand or feel insults, although my knowledge will surely improve after this conversation." Indeed.
Linda says:
March 24, 2008 at 8:56 am
I would go to Ikea just for the Swedish meatballs however it's not the greatest place to stop for a quick lunch. Getting INTO an Ikea is much, much easier than getting OUT.
Nate says:
March 24, 2008 at 9:10 am
My favorite ode to Ikea:
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Ikea

That same ode with some pretty funny visuals/found images.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJEtMSuMqg
Bridget says:
March 24, 2008 at 9:11 am
Lane, they DID have a $99 KLOBO, and it even folded out into a floor sofa bed. We used to have one and it was an awesome piece of furniture. When we moved (from the foreign country we bought it in), we sold it for $50 to some Marines. Sometimes I still feel bad for the little sofa bed. Surely it deserved a better fate (like Eric's Love Sac, I guess).
Mrs. B. Roth says:
March 24, 2008 at 9:14 am
There's a lovely song about Ikea:

http://www.jonathancoulton.com/store/downloads

it's under the album entitled Smoking Monkey - listen for free - download for free, it's LEGAL. And free.
whome says:
March 24, 2008 at 10:22 am
I loved the Home Teachers comment -- even though I don't live in Utah.
Christina D says:
March 24, 2008 at 11:17 am
I like how the Klobo has care instructions as follows:

care instructions
Do not wash.
Clean with upholstery shampoo.
Do not bleach.
Do not iron.
Do not dryclean.
Do not tumble dry.

Hehe I just have to wonder who tries to tumble dry or dry clean their couch.

In other news, they built an Ikea in Draper, UT some months ago and everyone was thrilled. Even my husband and I went down and purchased a bed from them after our bed kept imploding in the middle of the night. And we're quite happy with our purchase. :)
rykoch says:
March 24, 2008 at 11:35 am
Being a Swedish speaker (love those random mission calls!) the names of the Swedish merchandise are my favorite part of the store. Sometimes they actually do make sense. For example, the name of the stuffed snake is giftig which means poisonous. The name of my lamp, however, was arstid (I can't put the proper letter in), means season. Go fig.
TashaKay says:
March 24, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Even with my husband's whopping 15% discount we've still never bought any furniture from IKEA -- our Walmart and RC Willey stuff still looks fine. Plus, IKEA does not have black furniture. Has anyone else ever noticed that? It has this ugly brown that looks like it has one layer of black paint on it.

But most people who know we can get a discount think we're crazy for not buying out the store.
Joshua Steimle says:
March 24, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Erik, you'll take pleasure in knowing I used a variation of your Ikea/Mormon temple humor in a talk I gave a few months ago. Being in Utah, and living in Draper, where the new Utah-based Ikea is located, as well as a new LDS temple under construction, I thought it only fitting to start a church talk out by proclaiming how pleased I was to live in Draper, where a temple would soon be completed. I told about how when I was in the Provo temple once a nice old man showed me how you could look out of the Provo temple (by moving some curtains, which seemed to me to allow people to look in, which seemed rather unorthodox and the reason why there are curtains there, but hey, he was 90 and I was 23, so who am I to judge?) and see the Mt. Timpanogos temple, and he told me it was the only temple in the world you could look out of and see another temple. So then I proclaimed how great it was going to be to look out of the Draper temple when it was completed because it would be the only temple in the world where you could see not just one other temple, but an Ikea as well.

I got rave reviews on that talk, but no newsletter job offers.
mjmormon says:
March 24, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I am suddenly tempted to replace my love seat with a LoveSac just to watch the home teacher scene play out...
Cameron says:
March 24, 2008 at 7:20 pm
The Ikea Nesting Instinct sets in. Better watch out, Eric -- next thing you know you'll be fist-fighting strangers in the basement of a seedy bar.
Craig says:
March 24, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I used to be anti-Ikea, until I fell in love with the Vinde carpet. Though it's a shed monster, and I have empty my vacuum every time I clean it, it's gorgeous, and I've done the rest of my apartment around it with a harmonious mix of Ikea, Walmart, and Target. :)
Momma Snider says:
March 24, 2008 at 8:59 pm
My home teacher IS a big old squishy LoveSac.
Clumpy says:
March 25, 2008 at 12:59 am
I don't think that I've said this before, but it's wonderful that you read and comment, Momma Snider.
karinka says:
March 25, 2008 at 10:40 am
I've been toying with the idea of buying LoveSac sactionals for a while now. I think I may go for it in a couple months. If I buy sactionals, I will also buy a large LoveSac. The idea has me positively giddy. I'm all about lounging at my house. I think my friends would approve the purchases.
Momma Snider says:
March 25, 2008 at 10:57 am
Clumpy: Especially because my comments are so mature and dignified, huh?
Q says:
March 25, 2008 at 11:51 am
I have to say, I have a love-hate relationship with IKEA. . . but not with their meatballs. They're delicious. But #13 is right, you better be in a two-story IKEA where you can do a quick in and out to the restaurant. The one-story Austin (Round Rock) IKEA is littered with corpses who didn't quite make it through the maze before they starved to death. Also, when you're a struggling grad student with two kids living in Philly where there are not one but TWO IKEA's, you can feed your whole family for literally seven bucks.

Also,

#7 - fascinating research...

#18 - what in the world are you doing on your bed that causes it to continuously implode?

#21 - careful, Eric is hyper sensitive about his copyrights, and for good reason.
InkFiend says:
March 25, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I can't believe no one has said anything about the lingonberry sauce that comes with the meatballs. Whenever we go to IKEA for meatballs (and sometimes shopping), my husband and I quote Mike Meyers in "Axe Murderer" about the Colonel putting an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly. We think the addictive chemical is lingonberries!

(Oh, and we really like the stuff we've purchased at IKEA. The IKEA kids dishes are indispensible in our household!)
Turkey says:
March 25, 2008 at 3:40 pm
$119 for that?!
Nina says:
March 25, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Go easy, Eric. If you buy a few pieces, your apartment will look sophisticated. If you buy too many, it will look like a habitat designed by aliens to house the humans in their interstellar zoo. The colors are strange, and the proportions are not quite.... correct. I have an IKEA chair that no one will sit in, because you'd have to be pear-shaped and 4 feet tall to be comfortable.

PS: the Swedish potato chips are the best ever. Seriously.
LN says:
March 25, 2008 at 7:04 pm
My sister has the Johan. She likes it. I want a flärke.
Heather says:
March 26, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I remember once reading one of those terrible fluffly women's magazines about nothing really in particular (Cosmo, Elle, Vogue, Glamour..?) and there was an article about what a guy's furniture said about him.

According to the article, "IKEA" is Swedish for "I'm still paying off my student loans."

I feel there is some truth to that statement.

But I don't think I will ever outgrow my amazement of the IKEA cheese grater/bowl/tupperware. Genius!
Lisa Clark says:
March 26, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Eric, I am so sad that you felt you had to get rid of the lovesac. As if you moving wasn't bad enough--signalling the end of an era--you just really had to hammer the nail in that coffin, didn't you? And while I'm post-pardum, no less. (but, when am I not?)

I have warm fuzzy feelings and memories associated with that lovesac, so much that we have one of our own now. And the cycle of life continues. . .
topher clark says:
March 26, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I got all excited about this "Ask Anna" thing! I love stuff like this.

I asked her "Do you like bald men?"

and she said "I can't answer personal questions like that. Please ask me something in relation to IKEA or our products and services."

So I asked her some dumb stuff about IKEA products and then I asked "WHY don't you like bald men?"

and she said "That's not a subject I'm willing to discuss. I'd prefer to talk about IKEA."

And she makes this grouchy face with her lips!!!!
Suzanne says:
March 27, 2008 at 6:05 pm
So, is that why we haven't had a new Snide Remarks in so long? Eric was busy assembling his furniture?
Jennifer says:
March 28, 2008 at 10:18 am
Oh man, you made me spit coffee out me nose on that one. One of your funniest.

BTW you shoulda used the Temple joke ... smart Baptists as far-flung as the Southeastern US (like me) would've "gotten" it.

BTWW my impuses are not to be trusted either as most of them involve ... uhm, stalking ... Johnny Depp. Any scandinavian term for THAT come to mind?
hecowe says:
March 29, 2008 at 9:34 pm
My brush with the cult of IKEA was brief but terrifying. After a friend told me she saw a couch in a particular fabric at the IKEA in Burbank, I happily checked it out and tried leaving to report the fabulous price to my new husband. I wandered for an hour and a half trying to find the exit -- I couldn't even find the stairs to the first floor -- there were no salespeople available, or at least any who would talk to me -- a nice lady pointed to the corner of the store, but I swear I passed her four times before I found the staircase -- who designed this place? -- was the couch design equally faulty? -- did anyone ever make it get out alive? -- was that why they sold meatballs and had a cafeteria, so the people-rats who were as directionally-challenged as myself could eke out a shadow existence in the bowels of IKEA? Breathless, I made it to the first floor and ended up going "out" the "in", where a rent-a-cop boomed that that was bad form as I ran to my car. The entire experience left me slightly claustrophobic, and when I got home, my dear husband informed we weren't going to throw good kronor after bad by buying any crap from IKEA.

We scrimped and saved and bought a piece at a time from Ethan Allen. Run, Eric -- run like the wind and save yourself from IKEA...
Loren Anderson says:
March 30, 2008 at 10:34 pm
A box of bed before I go ... my eyes are still watering ...
whea-wix says:
March 31, 2008 at 7:28 am
I want pictures of eric's new man space.
Deb says:
March 31, 2008 at 8:57 pm
I am sad about the love sac. I think you will regret that.

Shucks. I have heard that there was a new IKEA nearby, but had totally been uniformed as to what it was. I thought it was an electronics store...
But now I may have to see if there is a safe way to sample the meatballs that have been so glowingly mentioned. (do lingonberries glow? is that the secret?) The scary part is that I do get claustrophobic, so...I dunno. Do they deliver the meatballs at a take out window?
melis says:
April 1, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Eric! Nice klobo!
Sean says:
April 14, 2008 at 9:13 am
I seem to want to say something negative about Ikea but I can't. The meatballs are great, the furniture is appealing and cheap. The place is spacious (though hard to get out of within the first hour), and its genuinely friendly too!

Nice review Eric
tara says:
August 6, 2008 at 11:57 am
I can't believe no one mentioned my favorite thing about IKEA-free babysitting! I don't care what their selling.

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