Hotdogs - Life's reward for surviving IKEA

You know what's not fun? Furniture shopping. Two words that strike fear into the heart of any man, woman or child who has ever entered the misleadingly friendly-looking doors of their local IKEA.

Furniture shopping is awful. Everything about it, from deciding how much you want to spend, to being disappointed that 200€ won't cover six chairs, let alone a table that doesn't pose a health risk is a nightmare. I feel my skin crawl just thinking about how many more visits The Boy and I will have to make to various hell h

oles before our new apartment is fully furnished. I don't know what it is about furniture stores that press all my murder buttons, but as soon as I walk in that door and The Boy says „what should we look at first?“ I want to bring up every petty, little thing that he does or has done wrong over the course of our three-year relationship and (verbally) skewer him for it. I'm sure this is a natural response seeing as IKEA is a well-known relationship killer and the hotdogs are only available at the end of the shopping trip (probably as an incentive not to rip each other to pieces until the end) and I can see why it tests relationships. I thought furniture shopping would be fun or possibly romantic, picking out the couch we'll watch TV on, looking at the cutlery I may or may not use to stab him if he doesn't let me get the mattress I want, but it's not. You constantly realise that the other person wants to put ugly, useless things in your home. For instance: I do not need a coffee table, a coffee table is only there to stub your toes on and collect junk mail, beyond that it has absolutely no purpose. The Boy however, needs a coffee table. I tried to explain to him that the floor holds drinks just as well as a toe killer, but he requires one and I, being the awesome girlfriend I am, compromised – all I need is for it to have a drawer to store the toes I will inevitably lose to the table's sharp corners in. But The Boy doesn't want a drawer, he also doesn't want glass and needs it to be a certain height – knee height, so I can kiss my knee caps goodbye as well. I said it has to be higher - he said lower, I liked an oval-shaped one – he wants a rectangular table, I specified a certain colour - he wants a different colour, and so on and so forth until I lay on what was almost certainly the designated break-up couch, howling about how I regret signing the lease and watching him kick the drawers of a coffee table I can't have because it has drawers.

This is what furniture stores do to people. You know why the restaurant in IKEA is in the middle of the trip? It's so you can take time to apologise for all the awful things you have said and done, before you say and do a few more awful things on the way to the hotdog point. Everyone warns you that furniture shopping is awful but no one says why. It's not just because you have different tastes, it's not because it is a lot of money and stress and a big life change. It's because it is so banal that if it weren't for the soap opera, you would realise that you are spending precious minutes of your life deciding whether to get a 20l bin or go for the 30l. That, mixed with the rage chemicals they spray on you as you enter those misleadingly friendly-looking doors is the ultimate test of a relationship. The hotdog point is the reward (also where they give you the antidote for the rage chemicals – never skip the hotdog).

Luckily, we now have the internet and we can buy everything our home needs without ever setting foot in a furniture store. At first, The Boy suggested we go in and look at the stuff before we order it, but he has since come around. The less time you spend standing in a furniture store wondering whether you should get the blue bath mat or the brown one the better, because ultimately – you just want to live together - and that can't happen if you are forced to abandon your partner before the hotdog finish line in order to get the blue bath mat that you both know will go better with your decor.

Hope all is well.