Recently, in a spasm of giddy spontaneity, I visited a Swedish-Dutch conglomerate best known for adjustable shelving, frozen meatballs and free pencils. It’s a place that also has a reputation as a domestic war zone where more than one marriage has taken a bullet, as illustrated by the loudly whispered conversation I overhead between a man and wife.
The couple in question, an efficient, professional-looking pair probably in their late 30s or early 40s – she had a very nice coat, he a carefully trimmed beard – were in the market hall looking at kitchen accessories. I, in a fetching woolly hat and slightly greasy parka, tuned into their contretemps when our trolleys briefly kissed under a display of floating chopsticks. (Could I just say here that I’d only gone to the place for six wine glasses but had already managed to acquire a window-cleaning thing, a roasting pan, a basting brush, three packets of napkins, a murder of tea lights, a pair of oven gloves, two jars of dill mustard, yet another Kilner jar to gather dust at the back of the press and a Christmas tree.)
What with sleigh bells ding-ding-a-dinging and credit cards ching-ching-a-chinging and, like, the entire clan gathering for the festive nibbles in the split-level extension in less than a fortnight, this can be a stressful time of year
Where was I? Oh yep, that brisk and competent couple whose increasingly terse conversation was threatening to explode all over the decorative rolling pins even though they looked like pretty rational types, the kind who’d long ago worked out their storage solutions.
But, you know, what with sleigh bells ding-ding-a-dinging and credit cards ching-ching-a-chinging and, like, the entire clan gathering for the festive nibbles in the split-level extension in less than a fortnight, this can be a stressful time of year.
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Him: “I want a wooden spoon.”
Her: “It is a wooden spoon.”
Him: “It is not a wooden spoon.”
Her (deep breath): “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is wooden and it is a spoon, no?”
Him (nostrils flaring): “It’s a wooden serving spoon. I want a wooden cooking spoon.”
Her: “For what? Mixing yourself a cocktail?”
The American comedian Amy Poehler once suggested that Ikea is Swedish for argument, a line I’d dearly like to have thought of myself. Even the most cursory investigation into the dynamics of warring couples in Ikea warehouses the world over is guaranteed to unearth the wisdom of many a California-based psychologist.
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According to lots of behavioural analysts called Cindy, the things that couples fight about are all, quite literally, on display at Ikea. Yes, all of domestic life’s little time bombs are merrily ticking away underneath the arc lights, just waiting for you to find the Allen key. Household chores: so who’s going to end up in the reindeer-patterned apron – again? Work-life balance: you really think another swivel chair will get you that promotion? Children: how come ours don’t gurgle with happiness over a box of wooden blocks? And anyway, where are they?
And sex, of course: seriously, mate, how many shagging togs do you need in your duvet before you’ll finally ditch the PJs?
There is also, I think, a creeping and generalised sense of hopelessness that kicks in while you’re trying to find your way out of the lighting section only to end up face to face with an artificial cactus. It comes from the fundamental realisation that no matter how many strings of fairy lights you hang from your beams, no matter how many ways you rearrange your modular seating cubes or angle your poises, life will always remain messy and unpredictable.
You can spend the rest of your span with a self-assembly guide trying to knock together a three-drawer daybed, you can shroud yourself in sheepskin and cinnamon, you can turn your kitchen into a set for a Scandi noir if the fancy takes you, but, hell, we’re all going to exit the slopes at some stage, even with a box of triple-ply at our disposal. Odds-on that, before that inevitability, a fair few of us might end up weeping in the bath from time to time, despite a colour-co-ordinated selection of tufty bath mats and a reassuring selection of suction hooks on the sparkling shower door.
I discreetly followed the couple to where cushions and curtains were displayed and was rewarded with a silent movie featuring taut paper tape measures and a dumbshow of shoulder-shrugging and mouth-tightening.
I hope they have a lovely Christmas – I hope they get to break out the cooking sherry, put their feet up on the ottoman and sail into the new year. They certainly had enough decorative lanterns in their trolley to light their way to February.