"Like everyone else, I had become a slave to the IKEA nesting instinct. If I saw something like clever coffee table sin the shape of a yin and yang, I had to have it. I would flip through catalogs and wonder, "What kind of dining set defines me as a person?" ... I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of wherever."