ikea'ed...

krista and i spent our afternoon in the umlauts-a-plenty world of ikea. i don't know what it is about that damn place, but it's impossible to go there and not spend a ton of cash on a ton of crap. they're really quite ingenious -- first they rope you in with the showrooms, get you salivating over rooms that are nothing like the ones in which you live, put ideas in your head about storage space and wall decorations and lighting; then they drag you downstairs into the marketplace area, where everything is like $0.99 and shiny and bright. and by the time you've made it to the marketplace, you're so glazed over by the sea of molded plastic furniture and the smell of swedish meatballs that you fill your shopping cart with everything within reach and trudge like a zombie with your credit card in your outstretched hand to the check-out registers. woo-eee.

i will admit to having a love/hate relationship with ikea. so much of the stuff makes me roll my eyes in scorn. but as to the rest of it? upon seeing it i realize that i _NEED_ it -- that my life is totally incomplete without it. ridiculous. ikea has mastered the art of infecting its shoppers with desire like nothing else. ah, ikea. so unassumingly brilliant. and yet indispensibly frivolous.

i'm proud of myself today, though -- it's amazing how being a poor student really helps keep one's inclinations to buy stupid shit in check. that travel coffee mug for $3.99? yeah, i realized quickly that i already have three travel coffee mugs and don't need a guaranteed-to-leak mug from ikea.. and that pillow in the as-is section? what the hell am i going to do with one more pillow?

so what did i buy? mostly what i intended on buying before i got there. i got new curtains for my living room (can't tell if i like them or not yet... i think i need to see them in the daylight.), some cheap wine glasses, some drinking glasses (i'm making a deliberate move away from plastic cups), a tea kettle, a red throw blanket, and (this is my favorite part!) three new plants!

and by the time we were finally out of that place, krista and i were both a little grumpy, a little tired, and a lot over our swedish furniture jones.