I should weep. Or whine long and loud and probably in Swedish. Or I should get a wooden dowel and shove it up one nostril. (Though I did that already and, yes, it was pretty funny.)

But I won’t.

But before I tell you why I won’t whine (a first, by the way), I’ll tell you why I should:

I recently completed construction of two Ikea products (the 437-part “Billy” and the 1,977,481-part “Expidet”). Though it’s been 10 days since my 14-hour stint as a faux carpenter, my fingers remain clenched in the shape they assumed when I was forced to hand-screw 72 wooden dowels into various Billy orifices. And, because of that, the expiration date on my whine-o-meter has several days on it.

I did my stint as an Ikea carpenter even though my wife and I officially swore off all Ikea products early in our marriage. That happened before we swore off Ikea products soon after our daughter, now 13, was born. And that was before we swore off Ikea (and, as an added bonus, all discount products from Scandinavia) about eight years ago, when we moved into our present house and promised ourselves “no more crap” in terms of furniture. (If you’re counting, that’s three different trips to Ikea rehab leading up to our current state of active Ikea addiction.)

I could give excuses for our latest Ikea fall (no money, design, really and truly no money, exhaustion, lack of taste, etc.), but I’ll cut to the chase: Our son, age 8, now is the proud owner of a new faux bookshelf and a new faux dresser. Both pieces are faux birch, painted (or at least taped) in a faux dark, almost mahogany, and they’re every bit as faux butch as mid-’60’s era Hef in a smoking jacket.

And the existence of these products in our home makes me feel, well, if not “good,” then at least accepting.

Why?

First, because the little naked cartoons that show you how to build Ikea stuff in all Ikea literature don’t wear pants. And that’s funny.

Second: Carpentry.

See, no way I could build a real version of the horrible stuff I put together last weekend for my kid. My family and I would sit and sleep and do our homework in the ground (in fetal positions) if furniture at my home required me to build it.

But Ikea psychologists are clever if not in fact evil. They’ve sussed out that tens of millions of middle class dudes are as inept as me, yet also long to create something - anything - for our kids (or our spouses or our dogs., etc.) And, though our longing isn’t quite strong enough to prompt any of us to learn actual carpentry, it is strong enough that we’re willing to spend all of a super hot day with two different screwdrivers (the one that ends like a tiny blade and the one with the squiggly thing on the end) a tiny hammer and pictures of little naked Swedish carpenters.

If it matters, my kid pretty much hates the stuff.

As if I care.

Posted in: Dad: The Musical - Andre Mouchard • The Dad Bloggers |

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