IKEA is Swedish for bizarre OR fun with Anna

IKEA has toyed with my emotions for so long by not putting one of its stores in my metro area, but I finally gave in to ordering a small little something from its website for my soon-to-be redesigned home office.

And let me tell you, the whole process has been a bit strange and I haven't even gotten my order yet.

For starters, the online order form never asked me for my credit card info. It didn't even occur to me that this step was missing until I hit "submit" and it gave me a confirmation number, which prompted thoughts of Am I getting this for free? and Should I reorder?

The answers were No and No. I soon received an e-mail instructing me to call customer service to give my credit card number, but of course had to go through loops and hoops of automated options before actually speaking with a human who couldn't complete my order without getting confused and mumbling to himself for about three and a half minutes while I brushed my teeth and checked my facebook account. OK, bizarre and completely inefficient, but whatever. We're dealing with Swedes here.

(By the way turns out to be more than twice my basic $7.82 order)

Anyway, long story short, it reminded me of a blogpost I read a few months back by Susie Sunshine about her online conversation with Anna, the computerized IKEA assistant on the company's Website who is basically worthless. Sadly Susie and the post about her hilarious and ill-fated conversation no longer dwell on the blogosphere, but a number of others have mimicked it here and here and they're almost as hilarious, and well, you get the point.

I logged on just now and asked Anna why IKEA wouldn't take my credit card info online. She responded by telling me what credit cards IKEA accepts. I asked her why their online ordering process was so f-ed up. She offered to explain the return process.

So, I asked Anna why she was so weird.

"I wish I could give you an explanation for that, but I can't."

There you have it.

In other IKEA news, some dude named Mark is living in one in New Jersey. I'm too tired right now to preview the videos for you, so please someone watch them and report back here. I asked Anna what the Swedish word for "thank you" is, but this was all she could come up with:

"I prefer not to answer questions about my background. Please, ask me something about IKEA."