The 13 scariest places in L.A. to be when you’re high

Entering the Burbank Ikea — the largest in North America — you’ll pass a dizzying map that links certain types of furniture to 27 numbered departments. I’m confident that no one has ever actually used it. Though the cafeteria may lure you into a false sense of safety, the winding maze that lies ahead will make you question everything you know about your own home. What’s alarming to those who boldly hit a vape pen in the parking lot is that at its most granular level, everything in Ikea is a sham. Sure, you expect the rooms to be oddly hollow re-creations of a Hot Topic-loving teenager or a grad student who exclusively reads terrible romance novels, but the lies go deeper than that.

My most alarming discovery was that the arrows that guide you through the showroom aren’t actually painted on the floor — they’re shaky light projections that could be changed at any minute. There are also inexplicable cat silhouettes on various shelves, fake pizza boxes that are taped shut, disembodied wooden hands hovering above model couches and gnome-ish beings called VINTERFINTs. By the time you make it out of the showrooms and into the marketplace, it starts to feel like deja vu. Did you already grab that hand towel upstairs? Do you need another desk lamp? You’ll pass sections that have things you need, looping back over and over to find the short list of items you actually came here for.

Yet the worst part is still to come: the self-serve section. This, I believe, is where relationships go to die. Even if you’ve successfully agreed on a bed frame or desk, this is where you’ll be expected to look up those items and locate their boxes. Though I have no tangible proof, I believe this self-serve area has a sort of curse on it that ensures that the item you’ve worked so hard to agree upon will already be sold out. You’ll walk out defeated, lacking the things you need yet somehow still toting hundreds of dollars in candles, picture frames and assorted knickknacks.