Doolies has to bribe me to go to Ikea. I hate that place. It's number two on my list of least-favorite places, right after the Container Store. Who needs an entire store for containers? The one good thing about Ikea is the incredibly cheap prices. I can't believe it took businesses so long to figure out that gluing furniture together shouldn't cost thousands of dollars.

Doolies needed to buy furniture for her office, so she dragged me along, mostly to carry the heavy boxes (in the end, even with Doolies's humongous SUV, we had to have the furniture delivered, so I wasn't even necessary. I did have to put together some tables. I am very skilled with the screwdrivers and wrenches). Her bribe was a gift. As we were wandering through Ikea, I saw the guy pictured in the doodle. Similar guys were used by early (and probably modern) painters as a model. Ikea took the idea and created a knock off that people could buy to "accessorize" their houses. I guess they figured it would be a conversation piece: "Yes, I paint in my spare time, and I can never get the tilt of the torso quite right when my subject is jumping. This doll has been a life saver!" When I saw him, I figured he'd be useful for my Horribles.

It is ironic, of course, that my Horribles don't have legs or arms, and not much of a torso. In fact, this doodle was one of the few times I had to draw limbs, which is why it looks so weird.

Well, not surprisingly, it turned out after I got him home and drew him, he wasn't very necessary for later doodles. He now lives on the top of my bookshelf in the computer room, unloved, unwanted, and unnecessary. Now, if I had bought a wooden dog doll, that would have been very useful for my Ziggy doodles.