I am a sufferer
I am really glad that the condition I suffer from has been individuated and given a name.
I thought that I was the only one that, upon seeing an IKEA catalog, immediately started desiring just about everything. I have three possible explanations:
- It is the names: rarely mega-corporate entities take the trouble to give an individual and slightly goofy name to every single thing that they sell. This is very cute. So you are not buying a little black wooden stool: it is your very own Trondö that you are taking home, to live forever in the company of Skroppje the can-opener and Bærte the light brown rug.
You are actually building a little family! A family of strange, silent Swedish objects, of course, but it is better than nothing.
- It is the demo rooms: they look perfect. Everything matches with everything - hardly surprising, since the rooms are built buy skilled interior designers using stuff that comes from the same collection.
But the problem is that my house will never look like that, and my wallpaper will never match with the pans; never will the shape of the spoons complement quite so perfectly the subtle curve of the fridge door.
Yet, by buying IKEA stuff, I can dream that things will come together and that some of that titanic pale-wood-and-glass unity of concept, harmony in diversity and stuff will rub off and improve my sorry housemaking skills.
Some times I would like to just grab one of the nice red shirt wearing young cuties that IKEA employs, and say "I want the room, not just the object, the whole room, and if it is possible a Swedish landscape outside the window. Pristine snowfields, or spring with cows - I must insist on the cows. Here is my credit card, abuse it, but make my house look so !"
Of course I can't do it, because at IKEA everybody is sane, including the customer.
- It is the Sweden thing: I am Italian. Let's talk stereotypes; we are a mess, we are noisy, we cook pasta and eat it with very red sauces, we have unruly curly dark hair that goes in all directions.
They are Swedes; they are quiet, organized, they eat very ordered potato-based dishes in elegant yet simple stoneware, they have blond hair that hardly requires being combed.
Surely I can't be blamed for hoping that, by buying slick particle board, aluminum and glass objects, some of that cool, composed North European style will enter my system.
My condition has not been very visible in the last years, because first I did not have my own house, then I moved to temporary accomodations in remote places, and now I am in Mexico and Mexico has no IKEA.
But in the near future I will be moving back to Italy. And then the syndrome will explode. I will bleach my hair. From now on, call me Olaf; I will be the tall blond guy with the SAAB.
Therapy
Therapy? and why? I am perfectly happy like this. Every morning I say "Hi, Griko how was your night? What about you Kjetta? Still holding all my Herp dishes securely inside, with the Wate set of glasses (8 pcs.)?".
I have only one complaint: they don't make computers.