I Want An IKEA Boyfriend

Dear Santa, for Christmas this year will you bring me an Ikea Boyfriend?

I'm starting to realize that my job/schedule/lifestyle/selfishness/compulsion to eat peanut butter straight from the jar precludes my having the full on boyfriend-boyfriend experience. Yes, this is largely the same logic I use, re: a dog. Which is fine, I like my unwavering devotion to working out every day and the fact that there are no Doritos in my house. Besides, holiday parties, cold winter nights, shoveling out from under two feet of snow? All things that would be made unbearably worse if there was a significant other tagging along, no?

What I want is a man-person whose sole responsibility is to come with me when I go to Ikea: an Ikea Boyfriend. Because Ikea is a place you really shouldn't go to without a partner.

Okay, sometimes being the only single person in Ikea is fun. You can give smug looks to the young couple arguing over "but WHICH throw pillow covers!" Smug looks that say, "well, I guess there are three of us who definitely aren't getting laid tonight! But at least I can buy whichever throw pillow cover I darn well please."


But then there's The Ikea Tango: you stare for awhile at Ektorp. Measure it. Sit in it. Fondle the fabric samples. Bemoan your inability to remember exactly which shade of greige your curtains are. Do the same thing at Kivik. And then go all the way back to Ektorp and start again (put all your chairs in one place, Ikea, dammit!). The trick to pulling this off is that you need another person to sit in the chair while you stare at it. Because there is always a middle-aged lady in a windbreaker sitting in the chair, or her teenage daughter. And then you can't measure/sit/fondle, you can only hover, staring, until they get up. Two people hovering a chair is A Couple Trying To Make A Decision About Decor. One person hovering a chair is Creepy.

And obviously, there's the warehouse part. Now, I am amazing at wrangling a huge sofa box onto one of those cart thingies, and also getting it into my tiny car, and my house. There should be an Olympic sport. I would like to not HAVE to accomplish feats of strength that leave whole families staring open-mouthed in the parking lot. But do you know what I have to do since there are blockades keeping the carts from going into the garage itself? I have to leave my sofa by itself! I have to depend on the kindness of strangers while I'm pulling my car up into a loading spot. Not that anyone could snatch an entire sofa that quickly, but still, I'm at the mercy of everyone who happens to be there and the extent of their stealiness. My Ikea Boyfriend will pull the car around while I watch the ginourmous box. And then he'll be big and strong and get everything into the car. Well, that part's not absolutely necessary, but should he want to show off some muscles I'd promise to be genuinely impressed.

It would be great if he was tall. Like, really tall, because then we could do schtick: "Oh, honey, you'll never fit on that couch/chair/bed! What ever are we going to do with you! At least [double entendre about big people and corresponding, er, proportions], har har har." I can do better than that awful scene in 500 Days of Summer, but I need a writing partner.

The best part is, he doesn't even have to be able to assemble anything! I actually love assembling Ikea furniture because I have something to prove. Also the assembling of an Expedit bookcase was the death knell of a previous relationship--to this day I call it The Dealbreaker. All he has to do is know how to pour more wine.

Who will be my Ikea boyfriend?



Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net