Are You Ikea-ding Me?
I just saw a story from the Arizona Republic talking about the opening of the first Ikea store in Arizona. Apparently, people have been camping out for the grand opening. Even if they're not really trying to buy something. They just want to be in first. And we wonder why people hate America?
The first guy in line, a 24-year-old named Scott Cesen, has been sleeping outside said store for eight days. I'm sorry, maybe you didn't hear me. EIGHT days. This is like the Hannukah of consumerism. So, by virtue of being the first in the store, he will win everything on the cover of the Ikea catalog, totaling about $1600. The first 100 people in line win a free $99 chair.
So this loser spent more than a week sleeping in front of an unopened store to win some chairs and end tables and whatnot? The only thing sketchier than that plan is the fact that, according to the story, this guy "took days off from his part-time job marketing sausages." Let's just hope that's not some kind of euphemism.
And to top it all off, the loser quote of the year, from 18-year-old Mesa Community College student Kitty Wells, "It sounds so hokey, but it really is pretty special. We get to be some of the first people in the store." The first people in the store?! It's a STORE, people. It's not the New World or Mars or something. Hell, it's not even the opening weekend of the first Batman movie (which was pretty crowded if I recall). It is a building where Swedes sell overpriced furniture! Get a grip people! Why are you in line for this?!
The more I think about this, the more it continues to boggle my mind. That said, I know people like Ikea. That's cool. No problem with Ikea here. But, citizens of the greater Phoenix area, this Ikea will still be there tomorrow. And the next day. And the next. Go home, relax on your non-Swedish couch. It's not that bad after all, right?
posted by Evan @ 1:16 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
No idea what to say about Ikea in Arizona. I feel like those people just really, really want to be cool—in the New York, liberal elite, blue state way that they can't ever be—and in doing so, get excited about something so lame and distasteful to the very same people they aspire to be.
But I digress.
I can't believe you were the first person to ask about Suburban Macondo. I've been blogging for more than a month, and not a soul has even brought it up. So, I'm assuming you know of Macondo, Spanish major? (If not, shame on you. It's the location of Gabriel García Márquez's Cien Años de Soledad, or the epicenter of magical realism.) Suburban Macondo, then, is a set of things: the banal attempt to recreate an urban chic in the bland towns surrounding said center; a suburbanite's own attempt to create a magical place in which anything is possible, in which all is real; and the ringlets and offshoots of the magical, the impossible, and their manifestations in another setting.
You might find this dubious. It also sounds cool, and it's a nice contrast: the boring 'burbs and this elevated kingdom, of sorts.
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