Sniping at Swedes is like shooting fish in a barrel, and in Sweden shooting those fish is even easier as they’re already dead, then left in that barrel to ferment for two months, canned, and then eaten. It’s called ‘Surstromming’ and, like Swedish retail giant IKEA, could best be termed an ‘acquired taste’ (similarly, Nordic Death Metal bands and Swedish tennis players though, if made to choose, I’ll take Opeth’s ‘Bleak’* over Mats Wilander’s ‘den lekfulla lognen’** any day). Yep, when it comes to ripened seafood and assemble-yourself furniture, what may smell Swede-y-sweet to one may smell waste-bin whoofy to another. And while, admittedly, I’ve no experience of the olfactory delights or otherwise of Surstromming (I’ll defer to the video on that stuff – make up your own mind***), I can say, with a degree of certitude, that shopping at IKEA Richmond is on the nose.
My experience began with the purchase of the Ektorp lounge suite. Like all IKEA products it boasts practical features: interchangeable covers, sturdy construction, and a classic design; to name but a few. Overall it’s a simple and attractive international model but, like most simple and attractive international models, it comes with baggage. Still, I’ll cop all of Kate Moss’s tanties, bulimia, pissed off PETA protesters, even trips to rehab to visit Pete Doherty, in preference to a life with the Ektorp; at least I’d be half a chance to score a snorter full of nostril-popping nose-candy for my trouble (that’s if Pete hasn’t blitzed it already). No such largesse from the Ektorp though – not even a single, foisty fish – all its’ gifted me is $180 in delivery charges, sciatica, and two ill-fitting, purportedly removable, covers originating from…wait for it…Romania.
But let’s put Romania aside for a moment and focus on Sweden and money (money and Romania being a tautology anyhow unless you’re a people-smuggler…hmmm…maybe Moldovan sex slaves made my covers). While the delivery charge is sizeably irritating in itself, what really pains me is the bullshit of this barf-inducing bumf;
‘It’s the work we do together that keeps our prices low. First we do our part…to save on storage we pack things flat. Then you do your part. By picking up your furniture, bringing them home and assembling them yourself.
Together we save money.’
There’s plenty to not like here: the schoolmaamy tone; the cloying attempt to solicit me – the little bloke – into some sort of ‘smarmy-Swedey’ thrift scheme. Worse is the bogus, ‘…we pack things flat.’ We pack things flat!? Well, chuck me in a barrel, ferment my bile, and brine me! Upon acquainting myself with the Ektorp in IKEA’s self-serve furniture area it was clear that no amount of ear-scratching, chin-rubbing or wanton ingestion of hallucinogens was gunna’ flatten out that thing, and there was just no way of merely bunging it in the boot and chugging home…delivery gratis. I was a goner – me and my moolah – and there were no valkyries summoning me to Valhalla to sup at Odin’s warrior table (flat-packed, no doubt, for ease of transport). If, indeed, I needed a nose-bag, I’d have to proceed to the restaurant, conveniently located on the second floor, where, for another $6.50, I was welcome to try the Swedish meatballs served with chips, gravy and lingo berry sauce…lingo berry sauce? What’s that…scum dredged from the Surstromming barrel!?
Interestingly though, those primarily responsible for filching $180 of my ‘hard earned’ aren’t even Norsemen. No, it’s a crew of Antipodean pirates that sail under the Kings Transport flag and, as the length of the queue testified – those sans trailer, truck, or aircraft carrier – they’ve found their ‘plunder down under’, stashed just beyond the checkouts of the IKEA Richmond store.
Still, in the interests of lowering my blood pressure I knew I just had to ‘let it go’ (take a gander at the second surstromming video for a detailed example of how to ‘let it go’****); besides, I was sick of bruising my arse on the stacked milk crates serving as my TV chair. So, upon accepting delivery of the Ektorp three days later I’d already ticked off, grudgingly, all the anticipated benefits that healthy Norse design would bestow upon me. I handed the dough to the pirate from Kings and got to work; dutifully dampening my brow in the name of Sweden and their balance of trade figures;
“Then you do your part. By picking up your furniture, bringing them home and assembling them yourself”.
Phase one proved easy enough: I even caught myself humming a few lines of ‘Norwegian Wood’ while removing the shrink-wrap; it must have been the smell of pine, or birch, or beech, or whatever the Hell else they use for the frame. The real problem though came during phase two, the self-assembly phase. Upon attempting to slide – nay yank – the second of the ill-fitting covers over a chair back I felt a ‘critch’ as my back deviated out-of-true. I spent the next week walking around like I had a carrot or, possibly, a swede rammed up my clacker (and don’t think that’s not possible, there’s a plethora of Euro porn flicks, or, so I’m told, featuring the very same). And I was simply not prepared to shell out an extra $100 plus for a physio to extricate it…guess I should’ve stuck with the bruised arse. But that’s not all, upon closer inspection the stitching of the cover - direct from that sweat-shop in Bucharest - had torn away in a number of places. I would have to return to IKEA for a refund, and I was really looking forward to that.
Months have passed since my Nordic misadventure. My return visit was, in truth, relatively incident free, barring the twenty minute wait while a bloke – whose name if it wasn’t Sven probably should have been (blonde, muscled, dark-rimmed glasses, possibly moonlighting as a gym instructor cum porn star) – listened politely and attentively, in that infuriatingly ‘nicey-nice Swedy’ way, to all my wife’s indignation about washing instructions and faulty workmanship. Anyway our covers were exchanged and they fitted, no problem – leaving me sufficiently confident to return to IKEA and buy some scatter rugs and cushions under, sensibly, strict supervision from my missus (my idea of style being a boar’s head mounted above the telly, a seal-pup rug on the bed, and a XXXX poster on the dunny door…cover the backyard in green concrete, whack a rusty engine block out the front, and I’m a happy man). I can’t help but think though that maybe I’ve been the unwitting victim of some sort of trans-national conspiracy; the co-conspirators being Sweden, Romania and Australia - aiming at a barrel - at a stinky little fish like me. Sadly I was already dead and fermenting the instant I entered that store…I just didn’t smell it.
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