And Speaking of Furniture...

There are two sides to every coin.  Two poles to every planet.  Two sides to the Force.  Neither side is better or worse than the other (except in the case of the Force), and in this entry I'm featuring the cheese and sausage side of yesterday's crust.

The Amish, a Mennonite sect, is an offshoot of earlier Anabaptists known as the Swiss Brethren.  Jakob Ammann, the founder of what was to become the Amish Mennonites, felt that his brethren were slowly losing touch with some of the more radical aspects of the Mennonite faith, to their detriment.  Specifically, he felt that the practice of shunning, or socially ostracizing excommunicated church members, should be much more rigorously applied.  Jakob, a man gifted with second sight, also foresaw the development of motor cars, electric razors, Epiladies, and the comedy of Carrot Top, and decided that severing ties with the outside world was advisable.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

Except for that last bit.

Whereas the Amish create high quality products with very low-grade technology, their Swiss cousins at Ikea create low quality items with the latest technologies and efficiencies available in the flat-pack furniture sector.  And I love them for it.  Amish furniture is made to last.  You can't say that about Ikea furniture.  But Ikea furniture is so stinking cool.  And cheap.  Kate and I, like many of you out there, can kill hours roaming an Ikea showroom, occasionally buying the odd item that we don't need but can't live without.  We have an Ikea TV stand, bedroom end tables, a lamp or two, baskets galore and assorted bowls and glasses.  Even our kitchen cabinets are Ikea (as an aside, the kitchen cabinets are actually very well made and very good looking.)

Walking through an Ikea showroom, you can't help but feel like some sort of jet-setting European hipster..."The couch is cool because it's uncomfortable."..."Sure it's made of plastic.  It's a dining room table, after all."..."Whaddya mean you don't know what a Fnord is!"

They say that, regarding any given thing, you can get two at most of the following three qualities.  Price, quality and style.  I'm replacing "expediency" with "style" because it applies better here.  And it's true in spades for Ikea.  Style out the yin-yang for an affordable price.