There are a few things that we, as a society, have defined as modern rites of passage into young yuppie adulthood:

1. Moving out of your parents’ house.

2. Becoming financially independent.

3. Furnishing your apartment with Ikea products.

While I’m proud to say I met two of these prongs several years ago, until recently, my transformation remained incomplete. Like a 2002 Britney, I was not a girl, not yet a woman. Basically, what I’m saying is I’d never set foot in an Ikea OKAY GEEZ

If you’ve never announced your Ikealess existence to a roomful of your peers - as I recently did - let me tell you what will happen. First, a cacophony of gasps will erupt as all heads swivel to look at you with uniform expressions of horror. Then, some of the people in the room will pretend to be responding to text messages, when they are in fact secretly defriending you on Facebook. You will Kanye shrug because you have recently developed a total indifference to Facebook. But when the Instagram unfollows ensue, it will cut you deep. Real deep.

At the behest of my roommate, I recently ventured to the Red Hook Ikea to end my days as a developmentally stunted social media outcast. Also, because we needed stuff for our new apartment and had a combined total of $17 to spend. What follows is a chronicle of that fateful day I journeyed into womanhood. My latter-day Quinceañera, if you will.

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