Wandering IKEA's aisles, or really maze, never gets stale. I can always count on at least an economical platter of gravlax and dessert. My last two visits, a recent entry to their St. Louis store prompted by a need for a reliable restroom and to my local offering just a half hour away, did not go well. Not even that gravlax, as they remodeled their cafeteria. Still, getting there, followed by a lengthy walk from their parking lot to their furniture display, or even the St. L restrooms, does not deter my next visit, at least to my regional location.
Usually I have some notion of what I might want to buy. At St. L nothing. Mostly my local drives, which take a half hour each way through some parts of South Philadelphia shared with marine terminals, other big box stores, some gentleman's entertainment, and warehouses make me wonder how far into the future the next drive there should be. At times I know what I want. A mattress. A sofa. My wife accompanies me for those. More often I go alone. She and my daughter even stayed in the rental car as I sought out the St L facilities.
Even when I don't have a specific item to assess, I create some imagined focus. Shelves, kitchen ideas, closet upgrades, replace my desk chair, some kitchen or lighting tools from their lower level Marketplace. Something to enable me to stop following the ubiquitous arrows they place on the floor. I divert myself into a model room or an array of stuff on the floor. I sit. I touch with my hands. I check the price. For bigger things, can I get it home? Do I really want to assemble this item in my living room with their shoddy disposable tools and language-free drawn instructions?
Sometimes I just need to drive someplace other than my house. A half hour seems the right distance, especially if rewarded with the Swedish version of chocolate layer cake and sodas in flavors that the WaWa does not have.
It was time for my next trip, as I looked at no merchandise while visiting their St. L store, which happened to be in convenient part of town, had readily available free parking and a restroom maintained by attendants. At home I look at stuff when I visit IKEA, irrespective of need. Two items: maybe replace my desk chair, obtained from an office surplus clearance thirty years back. IKEA has all sorts of desk chairs, price $100-500. Not all had price tags. Indeed, on this visit, many bins and individual items had no indication of price. I sat on several, mostly high-backed, mostly expensive by their standards. I liked some. None truly superior to my current chair. I looked casually at storage. My Space might benefit from a new recliner. IKEA living room furniture does not measure up to those of in-person or online furniture stores, either comfort or price. I did not even seek these out. As much as I like decorative things, I already have too many, having just purged some from my desk.
In their Marketplace, I look at all sorts of stuff. I learned on Shavuot that I did not have milchig serving utensils. Their salad sets looked shoddy. I could use more milchig plates. I prefer patterned of some type. They only had solid white or light blue. Storage I could always upgrade. Nothing caught my attention. Gradually I have replaced the lighting in each room and outside.
IKEA creates the illusion of need, but what they really market is want. I needed nothing, wanted almost nothing except a plate of gravlax and some cake for lunch. This time they deprived me.
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