Those IKEA Swedes are trying to ruin my marriage.

A VERY SPECIAL VALENTINES BLOG
and a very special Valentines T-Shirt:  Nu Dressur.

Hell on Earth

Ok, ok...Maybe "hell" is a little strong.  But is it?  Who's to say what hell is anyway?  Yeah, yeah, The Captain knows the prevailing opinion includes hoofed beasts, lots of fire and pokey metal things, but so does a weekend barbecue, so lighten up.  He's not going to get into all that.  Whatever lights your fire (so to speak) when it comes to otherworldly stuff, he's all for it.  He's talking about a different hell.  You guessed it.  Hell on earth.  Or as The Captain likes to put it: "those IKEA Swedes are trying to ruin my marriage."

See, the Swedes are a diabolical lot bent on psychological torture.  He still hasn't decided if buying or building their crap is worse.  Would you rather burn to death or be eaten alive?  Tough call.  But once The Captain has grabbed his paper ruler and elf sized pencil there's no turning back.  And so begins the endless and mind numbing zig zag zombie furniture walk of death.  A third of the way through he's lost any sense of direction he may have had.  Halfway through he's trying to figure out in case of fire which piece of furniture he can't pronounce is most likely to make it through the inch thick 2nd story window glass.  Two thirds of the way through The Captain wishes he would have listened to all those people who thought he should get his affairs in order "just in case...god forbid something should happen."  "Something's effing happening man!" he quietly yells to the first woman with a double stroller blocking his way to nowhere.  His walking lobotomy now complete, the Swedes will thrust his limp and brainless body through the world's longest point of purchase gauntlet.  "Holy $%@! how come we don't have magnetic spice holders honey? what the hell have we been thinking all these years? spices hanging like bats off our fridge, what do you want to do with the time we're going to save....hey! chip clips!"  By the time he gets home (and his brain cells begin to regenerate) these things all reveal themselves for what they actually are:  Crap.  Hanging crap, magnetic crap, clippy crap, bulk crap and space saving neatly stacking crap.

And it's at this point that the Swedes have you by the umlauts.  See, The Captain sucks really hard at building stuff and won't read directions because they confuse him.  He no like stuff that makes him feel dumb.  Fortunately for Mrs. Captain he'll be bringing to the effort his dehydration, sore feet and a mild case of starvation courtesy of the IKEA Swedes.  This, plus his inability to follow verbal directions and patience of a 3 year old always results in a glowing team effort.

Nu Dressur T-Shirt

But at the end of the day when The Captain and his better half are looking at their new dresser and wondering where that last screw was supposed to go they have some time to reflect.  They're sure that if they can make it through this, they can make it through anything.  This is the exact moment the Swedes true evil plot takes shape.  One of us will look at the other and say "It really wasn't that hard. We could really use a _____."

The free alan wrench?  It's a memory scrubbing device.  Get them out of your house.  Every. Last. One....Now!

Here's one more T-Shirt if you're one of those people that won't let those Swedes or anyone else push you around with their silly assembly instructions.

Assembly Instructions?  You Mean the Manufacturer's Opinion T-Shirt