Jun 12, 2012

Ten-Word Tuesday: The Urban Myth

Once upon a time, young Bossy was dating a man much older than herself. Not that Bossy was a man. But, that man was a man. And he was older.

bossy-older-boyfriend

members-only-jacket

And that man decided everything in his apartment should be either black lacquer or white lacquer. And no that man wasn’t gay. And yes that man had an apartment while Bossy was still in high school. See sentence about older.

Anyway. Enter Ikea:

ikea-build

As luck would have it, Ikea — brimming with black and white lacquer — decided they would open their very first U.S. store only a stone’s throw from Bossy’s boyfriend’s apartment. Assuming a stone could actually be thrown the 16 miles Bossy’s boyfriend routinely navigated his Mercury Capri between the Ikea Customer Service Department and his garden apartment, where he would curse warped laminate:

beaten-path

And speaking of the Customer Service Department, it wasn’t too long after Ikea came to the U.S. that Bossy learned she had a friend who worked at her very Ikea branch:

ikea-branches

friend-damey

And so one time, Bossy was shopping at Ikea and her cart was loaded for bear. Except it wasn’t bear, it was Expedit and Malm. When suddenly Bossy’s friend Damey ran up to Bossy and pointed to one of the items in Bossy’s cart and said, “You probably shouldn’t get that.”

And that item was this:

areca-palm-ikea

It’s an Areca Palm, and at the time, Ikea sold these specimens for a price so cheap they were practically disposable, which is to say Bossy already had several of these trees dying throughout her house:

plants-room

And do you want to know why Bossy’s friend Damey warned Bossy she probably shouldn’t buy the Areca Palm?

Because Ikea had purchased all of their Areca Palms from some wonderfully warm and fertile island or country or one of those places, and according to Bossy’s friend Damey, once those island pedigree palms were settled into their new homes throughout the Philadelphia area, something additional would reveal that the customer hadn’t paid for.

And that something additional was this:

ikea-tarantula

That’s right, tarantulas were wrapping themselves around the root ball of the palm tree before shipment, and they were emerging once situated in their new homes.

There’s lots of stuff that doesn’t make sense here. For instance how did a tarantula stay hidden under dirt for day upon day of foreign shipping and Ikea tent sales? Most likely it’s an urban myth. But that doesn’t stop Bossy from still thinking there are spiders tucked inside the soil every time she’s in Ikea eyeing up their plants.

Bossy can sum up her thoughts about this predicament that is likely an Urban Myth in this way: Bossy bought a palm at Ikea last week. Smaller, though.

ikea-palm-small

Which is what today’s Ten-Word Tuesday Challenge is all about. In exactly ten words, can you tell Bossy about an Urban Myth that has stuck with you, regardless of its fake state, through the years?

And be sure to check back later today for the best Urban Mythiest comments on the web.

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