Some assembly required

I came home from vacation, stepped through my front door, and was struck by two, well...striking realizations. It's time to get a boyfriend. And move the couch. Not necessarily in that order. Although, in hindsight, perhaps I should have paid a bit more attention to the order. Then, the boyfriend could have moved the couch.

I rearranged the furniture and then went to Ikea to buy a rocking chair and a lamp. That's the danger in moving a couch—you may discover a huge empty spot in your living room that now cries out for a rocking chair and a lamp. While I was out, I considered picking up a boyfriend as well, but then thought better of it. Everything from Ikea has to be assembled, and the assembly is always a disaster. It all comes with these instructions drawn out in cartoons of a doughy bald man building furniture. You look at them and think, piece of cake. You don't even have to be literate to do this. In fact, literacy would unnecessarily complicate such a straightforward task. Surely that's why Ikea has chosen, in its infinite Swedish wisdom, to leave these directions unencumbered by the written word.

Twenty minutes later, you find yourself staring in disbelief at that doughy bald cartoon man, telling yourself, "This simply cannot be this hard. I mean look at that neckless moron in the picture. He got the chair put together, and he doesn't even have thumbs." And then you swear at that smug thumbless son of a bitch.

This rocker was actually a bit more difficult than my previous Swedish masterpieces because one of the sides didn't have the appropriate screw holes. This necessitated a return trip to Ikea for a replacement part. It was there, in line at the return and exchange department that I met the angriest people on the planet. These are people who have spent hours, sometimes days, yelling things like, "Who the fuck are you smiling at, asshole?" at the neckless cartoon man standing next to the kitchen cabinetry he just assembled in four steps. Without thumbs. With their own hands cramped into claws from the hours spent trying to rebuild Rome with an Allen wrench, they stood cultivating their growing rage at the Swedish furniture purveyor.

Next to the line there was a large sign--a drawing of several clocks with hours colored in green, yellow, and red explaining the best times to visit each day to avoid crowds. Basically, it's a sign next to the line explaining that if you had planned your trip better, you wouldn't be stuck in this damn line reading that sign. For example, if you took time off work to, say, visit Ikea at 10 am on a Tuesday, there would hardly be a line at all. The man behind me studied the sign, looked at the line, and then said, under his breath, "Fuck this place."

I finally got the piece I needed and, since I was there anyway, decided I'd pick up a few tea lights. I left with a few hundred. The other night, when I lit them all on my mantel, it looked like I was shooting a fucking music video in my living room—like at any moment, Celine might waltz through the front door to belt out Power of Love.

I will say, though, that the living room has been completely transformed by moving the couch, buying a rocker, and starting a few hundred tiny fires. In fact, I feel so much better having rearranged the furniture, I'm not even sure I'm going to need that boyfriend. It's just as well, because, like I said, I left Ikea without one. I didn't even look to see if they stock those. Although, I assume they do. You can buy everything from throw pillows to meatballs there. It only follows that you can probably pick up a flat packed, easy to assemble Swedish dude for like, two hundred bucks. Tops.

Like I said, I considered it, but then remembered that I'd have to actually put him together. With an Allen wrench. Frankly, two hours spent fighting with new boyfriend parts while swearing at a neckless cartoon moron only to end up with some poor Swedish guy with one leg just a little shorter than the other and the gnawing feeling that he might have been a bit better in bed if I had just splurged and gotten him from Pottery Barn... Well, that just didn't seem like the best way to start a relationship.