A couple who entered a flat-pack warehouse to purchase one lamp emerged four hours later with shelving, a rug, ninety dollars of storage containers, and a substantially revised understanding of one another.

They did not buy a lamp.

“There is no route back to the lamps,” said Dov Ferraro-Klein. “You pass them at minute six. After that the arrows only go forward.”

The Institute for Guided Retail confirms the layout is a one-way path with no sanctioned reversal, and that couples who attempt to backtrack against the flow report the highest conflict of any measured retail activity.

“The arrows are not a suggestion,” said Dr. Sigrid Thorne. “A couple going the wrong way is visible to everyone, and they know it, and this becomes a discussion about far more than direction.”

The critical phase occurs in the self-serve aisle, where an item measured at home must be located by article number, verified, and lifted. Institute data identify this as the point at which most couples discover their true division of labour.

Assembly began at 7 p.m. It concluded at 11:40 p.m., with two screws remaining and both parties agreeing, without evidence, that they are spare.

The shelving is up. It leans slightly. Neither has mentioned it.