While I was at IKEA I noticed a cool new feature. They have a couple of model apartments that you can walk through. They’re missing the fourth wall, like a sitcom set, and of course they’re completely outfitted with IKEA swag. The one that totally drew me in was a 270-square-foot studio. If I were single, I would totally live in a place like this. It had a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living area with a loft bed and a little table.
There are actually many apartments like it in Seattle, including new condos in Belltown. The only problems I saw with it were that the stove is 24 inches, which is bad news if you want to have more than two burners going at the same time, and I think the bed was a twin, which is bad news if you bring a girl home and she’s not into crashing six feet to the floor in the middle of the night.
Then I realized, wait, I don’t want to live in an apartment like this. I want to live in this actual apartment, inside the IKEA store. Think about it. You can buy ingredients at the IKEA food shop, meals at the IKEA restaurant, and everything else you might need at, well, IKEA. Maybe you’d get sick of Swedish meatballs, but that’s the only downside. There’s a Target up the road for everything else. Every night would be like that episode of The OC where the gang spends the night at the mall, or like that early 90s movie _Career Opportunities_. This would be a publicity gold mine for IKEA. People would be talking about “that guy who lives at IKEA” nonstop. Hidden cameras would capture my midnight meatball raids.
For some reason, it took me forever to remember _Career Opportunities_; somehow I had convinced myself that it was a movie about some kids who get stuck in a toy store all night and have to outwit a security guard played by Judge Reinhold. Is this some other movie? Apparently in _Career Opportunities_, there are no kids, it’s a Target, and it stars Jennifer Connelly and some guy who is not only not Judge Reinhold but is probably not a jurist of any stripe.
Incidentally, Roots and Grubs turns one today. My goal was to post every day. This is post 366.
Maybe you are thinking of the Simpsons episode “Last Tap Dance in Springfield” in which Bart and Milhouse spend a week living in the mall and avoiding the security guards.
But I’m fairly certain the guards are animated, unlike Judge Reinhold.
Happy anniversary! You ‘da man!
Every night would be like that episode of The OC where the gang spends the night at the mall
Or Dawn of the Dead.
Happy anniversary, and congrats on the daily posting. I’ve been reading for several months, and though I don’t comment often, I enjoy your writing very much.
And without that 4th wall, just think of how much storage space you’d have!
Or like the kid’s book where a brother and sister live in the museum for a week…
^^^
“From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”