"Ikean understand it"

J'adore my new 100% cotton towels from IKEA. They are navy on one side and bleu-de-travail on the other, and just the right size for the gym bag and for waist wrappage while walking to the showers. With each step, they vent high on the thigh making the wearer more like a Rockette and less like a Hobbit. The hang-loop is thoughtfully attached at the center of one side to prevent floor grazing while drying.

At IKEA, every piece of furniture, every utensil and every household whatever is tagged with a name in the special Ikean language. For instance, my towels are called "TOFTBO" which means "This is not what you came here for but you will buy some anyway." As I walked through the kitchen cabinetry, chair, bed and sofa displays, and learned the names of all the offerings, I began to wonder if in Ikealand there is a disdain for hearth and home. Such nasty names for things designed for comfort. Morgflort. Drabglub. Loorkprut. It is clear to me that the two root words of the Ikean language are "barf" and "splat". The addition of an umlaut or a doubled vowel indicates color or size options.

I have studied my towels' two-sided tags and can now recognize the "fabric of our lives" in eighteen languages, but some of the Ikean abbreviations elude me. Switzerland? Sweden? Hungary?

I washed them before using them and am happy to report that because they were treated with glorpsplurd, their colors didn't run!