Couple who just tried to assemble Ikea shelf together already divorced

Halifax — An Ikea has at last opened in Dartmouth Crossing, and one Halifax couple who waited in line all night to buy furniture for their new apartment is already divorced.

“We were so excited about this Ikea opening that we waited 15 hours to get in,” said the woman formerly known as Shelly Burton, who now goes by her maiden name: Colford. “But today I was reminded that my now ex-husband is an idiot who couldn’t put together a couch with ‘no assembly required.’ Like, he seriously thought he could navigate the pieces on one of those insanely complex Swedish cabinets??”

“It’s a shelf, not a goddamn cabinet, you dumbass,” said Colford’s ex, Owen Burton. “And I didn’t see you rushing to lend a hand with it, either. You sat there on your phone the entire morning taking pictures of me and sharing them to your Instagram page. Suuuuper helpful.”

Psychologist Anne Molton said even the closest of bonds can be undone by a single trip to IKEA.

“In my trade we call it the Upplösning Effect or the Swedish Breakup — a woman who one day is very much in love with her husband still cannot stand to watch him fuss with incomprehensible instructions and will just snap and leave without telling him. He’ll get the divorce papers in the mail weeks later. In this case, though, it sounds like lawyers were prepared and are expediting the process.”

The couple’s divorce lawyer Jeffery Donaldson couldn’t agree more. “Heck, I moved here just to be where the action is,” he said, rubbing his hands together in greed. “My business will double, I can almost guarantee. I was waiting inside the Ikea with divorce papers ready to go. I might just set up an office in this place — it’s friggin’ huge.”

Burton said the thing that annoyed him the most was that his ex-wife asked him multiple times while putting the shelf together whether he’d bothered to read the instructions.

“Noooo, I just thought I’d wing it,” he said sarcastically. “Of course I read the instructions! Then she kept asking me if I wanted her to call her dad to come over and help out. Way to undermine my masculinity. And it’s not as if her dad would have been any help, either. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say.

“And as far as apples go, she’s a Cortland, and everyone knows they’re the worst ones.”

All Colford and Burton can agree on is the clincher in their decision to part ways: a small but maddening tool known as the “Allen Key,” or the “hex key.”

“Appropriately named, I’d say. It sure put a hex upon our marriage,” said Colford. “He couldn’t use that thing to save his life. I mean it’s not rocket science. He just has these huge bear paws and no dexterity at all. Needless to say that cabinet is never going to be put together.”

“I told you,” screamed Burton, “it’s a SHELF!!!”