Swedish Chef Syndrome
Ikea in Richmond, Victoria is huge. Not just big, absolutely massive. In many ways it is like a two dollar shop on steroids. Cheap crap made in China, being bought by people who didn’t know that they needed a Flarke, and perhaps would have been better served had they bought a Larke.
Due to its massive size, Ikea presents challenges to the unstable, the tired and the hungover as buggery. And just as Jerusalem Syndrome can cause the bewildered to preach the streets of Jerusalem, so can Swedish Chef Syndrome make people adopt dodgy Swedish accents and freak out. In my case, my nephew and I were so loud and raucous that his four-year-old daughter had to tell us that playtime was over. We weren’t the only ones though. Once respectable citizens of Melbourne were racing each other, pushing their partners in trolleys and avoiding Flarkes and other non-necessities, in an effort to get the fuck out of there.
Even crossing the finish line, with wallet still unopened there was a sense of despair. Here was a Sunday afternoon that would never come back, wasted in the dark, mass produced world of Swedish fascism.
