through the halls of the Viking king

I never met a Viking I didn't like  .Well, at least in the theoretical sense..  I mean, for a woman what could be better than the thought of some god-like muscle bound man of adventure  and courage  going off into the sunset in a blaze of glory-------  blond- haired blue- eyed Adonises conquering everything within their domain.  How powerful!! How romantic!!   The truth of the matter is most Vikings were farmers and tradesmen ....farmers who resurrected the bounty of the earth and tradesmen  who crafted their wares for trade and profit    I guess the latter is in their DNA.

This sense of craftmanship has traveled over the centuries, hewn from primitive offerings to modern accoutrements.   It has been placed on the altar of a new god....one that can often be unforgiving....the all powerful...all present .....sometimes frustrating  and often infuriating god of  IKEA!!

Are the Viking gods enacting revenge on us mere mortals??....Is the Sweden of a time long gone giving karmic payback for lands unconquered..  ..vanquished kings....unfaithful courtesans??..Things may be 'rotten in Denmark' but Sweden's flaming arrow launched across the seas and landing in veritably every shopping mall in America has caused more angst for more people than any scorch and burn march of a tribe of plundering Vikings

And what is their greatest weapon......??   The Ikea instruction manual!! The clean, crisp, very organized look of their furniture  is really a cover to lure you into their world of missing parts, and unclear diagrams.   Did I know that Gilda Blom and Gilda Kvall were variations of an Ikea rug and not two Swedish cousins?... that Jonsobo Barby was a lamp and not someone Ken was having an affair with ?  or that alsvik is a faucet, fyndig a sink, and ektorp a chair?

So first and foremost IKEA catalogues should come with the service of a personal shopper trained at the Berlitz school of languages.  Anyone who has purchased something at Ikea knows exactly what I am talking about.... Yet there is something  even more paramount than deciphering the language so you're  sure the chair you want  is the chair you're getting.  And that is the need to march up and down the aisles, navigate the territory, find the correct place for your "treasure" and have the strength of 10 men to lug the box to the cashier.    Does this marching along, staking out your territory and claiming your plunder sound familiar? 

 Then ....the moment of truth....the lines are drawn  and.the war begins.... you proceed to carefully review what looks like a  chip laden Las Vegas gaming table.. big screws, little screws...large washers small washers and a garden variety of rounded and   angled pieces. The ever present metal L shaped device to screw items into place awaits and with untold optimism  you begin.

Small left screw to left plank...washer and large right screw to metal clamp    ...triangle shaped plastic piece to four corners of base... large tube to .....what!!! what large tube??...you don't remember needing a large tube....and so you scramble through the mess to find the crumpled instructions and the first thing you see is the little instructional figure with a big X over it.  You just did what they told you not to do.

So after carefully  ripping open all those little plastic bags , meticulously laying out  every screw and widget and  spending   hours of trying to figure out why  the chair that you thought you had bought and was  putting together is starting to look  like a table, you have reached the point of  madness.

 Somewhere in Valhalla I can almost hear the sound of Viking laughter.