Scandinavian Furniture – 30/10/2017

A certain Scandinavian furniture store, which I probably cannot name on a public blog post, is the last train stop before hell.

Many people like it. “It’s great value”, they say, “so many practical things and so affordable. I get a sense of accomplishment from assembling the furniture I just bought”. This is willful delusion.

Every minute spent in that store is an admission of failure. None of us choose to be deep in the bowels of the labyrinth with glassy eyed kids melting down all around us. We are there because we cannot afford to be somewhere else buying furniture that we actually like.

Each purchase is an exercise in compromise: you know it is bad quality, but we buy it because we have to. Sitting in our home, it reminds us that we just spent $200 on lacquered particle board and ate meatballs made from horsemeat. And then it breaks.

Products are named by cleverly rearranging letters from the Scandinavian spelling of only three words: “underachiever”, “futile” and “self-esteem” (which is actually two words). Fake accents are then thrown in to give products their mysterious Euro-allure. This is the furniture equivalent of Häagen-Dazs.

The company motto should be: “Where Relationships go to Die”.  Couples enter the store with dreams of the future they will build together. They end up seething in the check-out lanes, their ankles gouged from the person with the extended cart in line behind them, craving a $1 hot dog despite being vegan. This is followed by the silent car ride home and furniture assembly with the little allen keys: a guaranteed relationship-ender.

Guess where my wife and I just spent our afternoon? Thankfully we have plenty of humour and whiskey to regain our perspective. And no doubt we are soon to return, drawn by the meatballs like a moth to hell’s flame.

NB: Image credit to Reddit User dionysage