I wanted to say a little more about the structural integrity of IKEA dressers, in case you thought I pulled yesterday’s metaphor out of thin air. No, I pulled it from my son’s room. I know you’ve been secretly missing my illustration abilities, so I’ve prepared a sketch. (If you don’t get a play button on your reader, you may have to click through to the sketchtag site.)

http://sketchtag.com/KRMGGGCNIe

Now, you are probably wondering, “Tanya, why did you buy an IKEA dresser in the first place? You know they all end up in landfills.” Well, it was because of off-gassing. Which IKEA furniture apparently does less of. Since my son’s head is right next to the dresser all night, I’m envisioning toxic gas going directly from the gluey seams into his brain. Like so:

http://sketchtag.com/KRMGM5CkSe

The question is: now what? First, I’ll have to dump the existing dresser in the IKEA parking lot, with an irate letter. After that, though, what do I buy? An off-gassing monster? An antique that’s embedded with bed bugs?

I’m considering allowing my son to spend the summer naked. He would be perfectly happy, and I wouldn’t need to figure out the dresser situation until fall.