While in San Antonio, a side trip to Wåhdeføkken land
IKEA’s San Antonio store is hard to miss. A hulking box-like structure, with about twice the floor space of the average Walmart Super Center, rises slightly over its surroundings and is painted the bright yellow-and-blue colors of the Swedish flag, which flies alongside the U.S. and Texas flags. You drive up to the store on IKEA Parkway.
Signs on the vast parking lot direct customers to electric vehicle recharging posts, a rather futile ecological gesture in Texas where electric vehicles are about as rare as vegan hamburgers. It’s just one of the many disconcerting features we’d find in the store.
Indeed, someone had parked their monster GMC 5.3-liter V-8 Sierra truck by one of the signs, as if to give the finger to those Scandinavians and all their environmental, climate-change shinola.
By the entrance another sign says “Hej” or “Hello” in Swedish, your introduction to the Nordic gobbledygook you’d find inside, most of it unrelated to the merchandise and meaningless even if you speak Swedish.
A tag on an exotic desk lamp reads “HÅRTE” (“hard” according to Google translator); “VÖRDA” (“revere”) on a hefty meat cleaver; “HÄSTHAGE” (“paddock”) on a kitchen hot pad. Sometimes even the IKEA marketers trip over their own labels. A few years ago a toilet brush was labeled “BOLMEN”, which turned out to be the name of a town in Sweden. The natives reportedly were not amused.
While not informative, these foreign wordplays add a bit of frisson to your shopping experience that you won’t feel at Kohl’s or Target.
They begin to buzz inside your head. You rationalize that the merchandise is unique, unlikely to be found at mainline box stores, and certainly not back home in Mexico.
(I’ve since discovered, though, that IKEA is one step ahead: They have opened a store near Mexico City.)
The urge to buy is strong. You quickly grab the item and put it in the shopping cart or the enormous IKEA plastic shopping bag you bought by the entrance for the giveaway price of ninety-nine cents.
And so we came home to Mexico with a weird desk lamp, a gonzo meat cleaver and two cute hot pads with a horsey design, and a blue shopping bag perhaps useful for carrying laundry, among other items.
IKEA got its start somewhere in Sweden by selling furniture that required assembly by the buyer and therefore could be packaged and shipped far more economically—and profitably. That simple marketing ploy went amok and today there are 462 IKEAs worldwide in 59 countries and three territories, and the company itself has evolved considerably along the way.
It’s no longer headquartered in Sweden but Holland—something about avoiding Sweden’s “mördarskatte” (“killer taxes” in Swedish). Quite a bit of the merchandise too is like so much sold worldwide by other retailers, with telltale labels, in very small letters and in English, “Made in China.”
The store in Texas seems enormous, 289,000 sq. ft., or over six acres. That’s actually small compared to the IKEA in Schaumburg, outside Chicago, with its 450,000 sq. ft., or the one in Manila with 730,000 sq. ft., almost big enough to house the Imelda Marcos Shoe Museum.
As you enter the store, it seems logically laid out, with display rooms filled with different furniture arrangements, in honor I suppose of IKEA’s beginnings as a furniture seller. But as you proceed, arrows projected on the floor lead you on and on, and you begin to feel lost in a retail labyrinth. Unlike a Walmart or Target store, in which you can see the outside walls of the store, this IKEA had a disorienting warren-like layout with separate rooms.
Floor lamps here, wicker baskets yonder, kitchen doodads to the left, roller skates ahead, more wicker baskets (maybe the same wicker baskets you saw a half-hour ago?) to the right. And more arrows on the floor supposedly guiding you but to where, it’s not clear.
We ran across some strange objects, like a battery-operated combination lamp and Bluetooth speaker, that led me to coin a new Swedish word: “Wåhdeføkk,” as in, “a Bluetooth speaker with a light? Wåhdeføkk?“
Two hours or so later of wandering in this retail maze, you feel hungry, your feet hurt and enthusiasm wanes. But just in time you run into the spacious IKEA restaurant, where the main entrée is naturally, Swedish meatballs, offered after vitrines with desserts most of them with lingonberries.
If you fear there’s not enough room in your tray to satisfy your appetite, IKEA offers three-level carts to carry that many more trays.
By now, your stomach full, you might feel like a little siesta, but, alas, a large blue sign above, with one of those damn arrows, spurs you to keep shopping. Maybe double- check that reading lamp back somewhere that would be perfect for our home office? Check. Those cute kitchen towels, back somewhere? In the cart they go too.
We begin looking for the checkout—a way out of this consumerist sea where the voices of Swedish sirens have been tempting us for two or three hours with all sorts of things we don’t really need.
Not that easy: We had to ask three different IKEA employees for the location of the elusive exit.
Back out in the sunshine of the parking lot we felt a bit disoriented after that dizzying Scandinavian sojourn, but an SUV with an AR-15 decal on its back gate reminded us we were back in Texas.
When we got to the apartment of a friend where we were staying, serious buyer’s remorse set in. How are we going to bring back to Mexico the bulky and heavy $59 reading lamp we had bought? Shipping was going to cost as much as the lamp. For a split-second Stew and I considered returning it.
But then I remembered the one Swedish word I had learned: Ah, wåhdeføkk!
El Rancho Santa Clara 
Been there, done that. The Ikea in San Antonio may not be one their biggest, but it’s waaay big enough for us. We also had lunch in the Ikea restaurant, but not the Swedish meatballs, although it seemed like every other try contained them. Everyone getting in the Swedish spirit, maybe. Anyhow, it’s too much, too big, etc. etc. A fun experience for the 1st couple of hours, then it starts to lose its charm, sort of like cobblestones.
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Yes, like cobblestones or getting caught in traffic in San Miguel, which looks charming for the first few minutes until you get stuck behind a bus. Let’s get together before we leave.
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Never a better description of IKEA has been written. Would not surprise me if a “pop-up” kiosk was in the parking lot selling your favorite gun for assassinating people and other living things. Fred
>
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The do sell guns, or used to, at Walmart, if that’s what you’re interested in. It’s curious how many stores in Texas have signs by the door telling people not to carry weapons while they shop. There’s something profoundly weird about a country where you need that sort of warning! Hope to catch up with you and Ron before we leave on the 12th.
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Hey, what a treat this morning to receive another dispatch from you, Al. Recalling my experiences with IKEA, the difficulty getting to my destination, when from previous visits, I know exactly what I want to buy and know exactly where it is in the store. But do you think I can go directly there? Not a chance, I’m compelled to traipse through almost every one of those damn rooms you encountered. Great for IKEA but not so great for us, the poor tired customers.
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But Don, that’s the whole IKEA business plan. To confuse the hell out of you, so you buy all sorts of things you don’t want—and probably forget the one thing you came in for. We owe you guys a phone call.
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Your disorientation at IKEA is common, and that’s how IKEA’s store designers by getting lost and buying a hundred dollars worth of stuff you never knew you needed.
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Ha ha ha! Ikea is a never ending extravaganza. The store in CDMX has been there forabout three years………I only went once to the one in Houston about thirty years ago. Itwas WAY too overwhelming for me. Hugs and Happy Thanksgiving. Barbara San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
415 124-9450 Mx Cel http://www.babsofsanmiguel.blogspot.com
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” Helen Keller
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There are a lot of people out there who enjoy these giant retail extravaganzas. But we find IKEAs deliberately confusing, and that’s why they force you to wander around picking up things you didn’t want on the way to whatever you came in to buy.
Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. We went to a Thanksgiving dinner that was a really mob scene, which neither Stew nor I know how to navigate. Particularly if we don’t know most of the people. Ron Stephens really is a master at that probably because of his years as a salesman. We’re leaving on the 12th and won’t return until New Year’s, so we hope you have a nice Christmas and New Year’s.
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What a delightful read! So relatable… I’m sending it to my daughter and a couple of other friends who are IKEA junkies. They can never understand why I won’t go with them! I am so relieved to know I’m not alone!
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Neither Stew nor I particularly enjoy shopping centers, and we went to the IKEA in San Antonio because we had time to kill and didn’t know what else to do. I can’t imagine what people do in really gigantic IKEAs like the one in Manila or South Korea. But there must be a lot of IKEA junkies out there, the way they keep opening new ones. Thanks for your comment.
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My husband and I have been to the IKEA in Mexico City twice. I don’t know how it compares in size to others, but it is enormous. It took us over two hours to go through it. The first time we were there just to look, the second time we bought a doormat that was not made in China. I want a small black shelf or credenza for the apartment. We saw one piece that might fit the bill, but the measurements weren’t quite right. I figure it would be just as easy (and probably not that much more expensive to have a piece custom made in a little “taller” that makes furniture,
By the way, I sold my home in Ohio, and last month I made the permanent move to Mexico City.
https://ilovemexico2013.blogspot.com/
Bill
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I’ve been to the Schaumburg IKEA. Fortunately, they opened a store in Bolingbrook which is more manageable and a little closer than the Schaumburg site. You’re allowed to enter the store before it opens if you’re going in for their reasonably priced breakfast. Their lingonberry jelly is unique and I frequently use it in baking. I think I need to make a trip!!
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Lingonberry is very cool and unavailable in Mexico as far as I know. A smaller IKEA than the monster in Schaumburg sounds like a good idea. My husband and I, a long time ago, looked for a house in Bolingbrook and it looked then like a struggling suburb, especially the indoor amusement park. Bolingbrook must up on the way up! Thanks for your comment.
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Why would you ever want to go to IKEA when there’s Casa Palacio at Antara in Polanco? Or even online at https://www.elpalaciodehierro.com/casapalacio.html.
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Because we were just curious about IKEA and had time to kill in San Antonio. Neither one of us is a very big shopper, or enjoy just cruising around shopping malls or department stores. Hope you and Macy are doing well, and had a pleasant Thanksgiving.
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Al, I’ve visited IKEA only one time. That time was with my Granddaughter. She was preparing for entering the University of NC at Chapel Hill, and the dorm space that first year was so small with a roommate in the same space. I have to say that the furniture IKEA offers for the price is wonderful; the size and configurations are such that the furniture can be built up instead of out so as not to use as much floor space; we bought a high bed on stilts and put a desk and chair with lamp under the bed; in addition we bought a medium size foot locker for clothes and supplies. It’s a dream for a student, especially when she wants to prop up and paint her nails and spill nail polish (ha!) because it’s cheaply made furniture. No one will be screaming at her for destroying a nice piece of furniture. She’s graduated now, and we left the furniture in student salvage for anyone wanting it with various shades of nail polish all over it,
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