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August 11, 2021

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Feature

IKEA to Introduce Minotaur to Give Customers Immersive Labyrinth Experience

The Lede:

IKEA’s Chief Innovation Officer, Twvig Erikson - direct decendent of Leif and second cousin once removed of Mary-Kate and Ashley - arrived on the shores of Crete with fistfuls of Swedish Fish and a Jumanji sized butterfly net. His mission, a singular one - retrieve the Minotaur.

Back up … Minotaur?

You’re so right, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Within the confines of the labyrinth at Knossos, designed by the legendary artificer Daedalus (father of Icarus) for King Minos, a creature lurks with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man - known as the Minotaur. As legend has it, the Minotaur is an insatiable fiend that feasts on the flesh of young sacrifices. The Labyrinth both houses the creature and serves as a backdrop for the hunt of the most dangerous game.

Got it - so how does IKEA fit in?

Good question. You see, the Minotaur requires constant feeding, and the Cretans began to fall behind on their offerings. “Paul was eating us out of house and home,” says CEO of Labyrinth Inc. Yiannis Papadakis, “With the pandemic slowing tourism, our supply of plump cruise ship waddling Americans was virtually non-existent.” Things were looking grim. The Cretans needed a life-line. They found one in Twvig.

“Ja, it was a perfect solution,” says Twvig:

“We’ve been looking for ways to heighten the sensory experience of our brick-and-mortar locations. You know, with the ease and convenience of online shopping, you need to offer something customers can’t get sitting behind a computer screen. We needed something that was going to shake things up in a big way. While meandering through our lazy river of inexpensive furniture has sparked the argument fuse that’s killed countless relationships in a metaphorical sense, we knew that introducing the very real possibility of tearing people limb-from-limb in a non-metaphorical sense was exactly what we needed. We just didn’t know how to execute. That’s when it hit me - We have a warehouse sized maze with a constant stream of unsuspecting feed - I mean, customers - and they have a ravenous beast - it was, how do you say… Kismet!”

And everyone is okay with this?

More than okay with it, it's therapist recommended. We sat down with couples therapy councilor Katherine Gilford who advises her clientele to take a trip to IKEA as an exercise.“A lot of couples, especially those who’ve been together for a while, just need the spark back. Something to snap them out of the routine. I think the primal fear of not knowing when a savage half-man-half-bull attack might occur provides that in spades. Is he behind the Blahuva? or possibly underneath the Knutstorp? Who knows, but that’s the fun. In the end, they’re just so happy to be alive at checkout that their problems seem trivial. It’s like I always say, you can’t outrun your problems, but you can outrun a Minotaur - so let’s try that.”

Sound Bites

Who’s saying “I think we should see other people”

Your sweatpants. In a sit down interview with our fashion editor Bianca White - the bombshell revelation - “I just can’t do this anymore.” Highlights from the interview below:

We used to have something - something special. You’d hang your work clothes on the abandoned exercise equipment, and slide me on after a long day - and it felt good - real good - like scratching under a dog’s collar good. But things are different now. With the pandemic induced work from home, you’ve been wearing me out.

When the bread making wave hit, that was the beginning of the end. Bread. Bread. More and more bread - just stapling itself to your mid-drift. Pushing the boundaries of what is humanly possible. I did the best I could, I tried. But you just kept going. Indulging without any semblance of what it would mean for me. I held on as long as I could - trying to slow down this runaway train like Toby McGuire in Spiderman 2. Something had to give - unfortunately it was me.

Your neglect has pushed me to the edge. I started smoking again - bet you didn’t know that. But why would you?

The writing is on the wall. Restrictions are being lifted across the country as more people get vaccinated. And where does that leave me, huh? I’ll tell you where - loose and used like a two-bit roadside motel hooker.

I just. I just can’t do this anymore. It’s over. I need someone who’s going to make me feel seen.

Even though we’ll no longer be together, we’ll always have quarantine. No-one can take that away from us.

As the crew was packing up the equipment and loading the van, a text message came in, it was from a pair of socks - it read, “Laundry day - we make a break for it. You still in?” Your sweats declined to comment.

Miscellaneous

  • Amsterdam is testing out electric autonomous boats on its canals - offering tourists a more sanitary way of motorboating through the red light district.

  • Scientists reported climate change is accelerating the extinction of emperor penguins - although this outlet holds that it's been long overdue for emperor penguins to step down and bring democracy to the arctic.

  • A Facebook post went viral as a North Carolina man caught a sheepshead fish that had a mouth full of human-like teeth. Marine biologists say that sheepshead fish are known for their unusual teeth, however, that does not explain why the fish had the voice of Paul Giamatti.

  • Amazon has started rolling out a version of its popular Alexa voice recognition software that has a more masculine-sounding voice, called Ziggy - Because if men are known for doing one thing well, it’s listening and responding.