Sunday, February 6, 2011

The Swedish are Coming! Hide yo Kids, Hide yo Wife!

The DC area is a melting pot of high fashion. Walk down the streets of Georgetown or around the football field sized mall in Tyson Corner (VA) and the rows of stores read like fashion magazines: Chanel, COACH, Nicole Miller, Tiffany's, Marc Jacobs, Armani, Neiman Marcus and Louis Vuitton. Louis was an exciting day. I walked into the store and all the "LV"'s just looked at me, begging me to take them home. I wanted to and pulled out the credit card, but reality set in andwith a sigh, put the card back in the wallet, put the speedy back on it's shelf and walked out.

I'm kind of poor. I do make a lot of money, but after the credit cards get their piece, the student loans show up at my door like mafia bosses demanding their piece and the rent, there isn't much left.
However, I do go out and shop at my Holy Trinity of stores: Target, Kohl's and IKEA. I tithe at least some of my money to one of them at least once a week and attend their service faithfully.

However, I don't think IKEA is so holy. In fact, IKEA may be the antichrist, placed here by the Swedes to keep us busy with Allen wrenches while the few souls who have avoided it's Blue and yellow temptation rise up to heaven. My God, it is paradise. They have everything you could ever need for your home and a lot you didn't even know you needed. I like dazzling and shiny and they have it in
spades. Part of me wonders if they took a page out of a Vegas Casino. Make it a maze so people keep wondering and keep playing and never leave until broke. Anyone, even those with bad taste, can be an interior designer here.

Their items are also cheap. Which was a good thing last year for us. Our furniture had started to eat me (I kid you not. I have the ER bills and the pictures of the bites to prove it). We assumed spiders at first, but with the consistency, found it to be bed bugs. I still have nightmares and couldn't sleep for a year without waking up thinking something was biting me. We had to throw out our living room furniture. Everything: Couch, desk, table, and TV stand. We kind of needed these things so we waited until we moved to the new place and went shopping to replace what we threw out. (Thank you, Wellington, for the many tours you give me so I have lots of money at the end of every month) We ended up getting our sofa and chair at Art Van, but everything else in our apartment is IKEA.

We tend to make a lot of trips to IKEA. For us, we always try to keep our shopping in check. Emphasis on try. A usual IKEA trip for us goes something like this:

" We need to run down to IKEA for (insert item) here" Me.
"Ok, write it down. I am also going to get (item)" Aaron
Drive down to Woodbridge. Arrive, park and walk in.

"OK, we don't get anything else besides the what's on the list"- Aaron
"Exactly, in and out. 50 bucks, 15 minutes"- Me
"Rock on"- Aaron
We are confident as we fist bump at the top of the escalator. Look down at the list and start our shopping trip, confident that we are not going to let this place get us down. Bring it, Sweden! 5o bucks, 15 minutes, no problem ........3 hours and 350 bucks later, we leave IKEA.






2 comments:

  1. LOL I have so far managed to avoid Ikea but Target gets me everytime! I went last week and spent less than $20, which is near impossible! But it wasn't because of impressive willpower...I already had some things in the car and didn't know how to fit the bookcase I wanted in as well...so I am going back for it today :)

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  2. Lol!! I am not allowed to go to Target unsupervised anymore. I spend way too much money. If I do have to go alone, I just get money out and leave my wallet in the car. Thankfully I'm too lazy to walk out and get it and go back in.
    And Kohl's I have a credit card so I feel like I rob the place when I leave...it's bad! "_

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