Michael Symons
- Ikea model hands are used as decoration or as a reference for artists learning to draw hands.
- One Ikea store zip-tied the middle finger of a model hand down to prevent customers from rearranging the hand with the middle finger up.
- One employee described seeing "a field of middle fingers" in his Ikea store.
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An Ikea store in Canada found a creative solution to prevent people from rearranging the store's wooden model hands to flip people off.
The product, called the "HANDSKALAD," costs $12.99 and is about a foot tall. The wooden model hands are often used as decoration or to help artists learn how to draw hands.
A Reddit post on the "Mildly Interesting" subreddit showed the wooden hand, which can be adjusted to change the finger position, with its middle finger zip-tied down, presumably to prevent customers from raising only the middle finger.
Michael Symons, who took the photo of the zip-tied hand in a Winnipeg Ikea store, was shopping for baby cribs with his wife before he came across the display.
"I laughed as soon as I saw it, because my immediate thought was to put its middle finger up," he told Insider. He took a photo and posted it on the subreddit.
Perrine Marion, who works at an Ikea in Brest, France, thought the picture was funny and said his store should do the same.
"Sometimes at the end of the day you discover a field of middle fingers," Marion told Insider. "Usually we don't see people do it, but when we do, we laugh it off."
On the Reddit thread discussing the photo, one person who identified themselves as an Ikea employee said that employees at their store were discouraged from modifying the product in any way that would prevent the customers from fully experiencing the product, while others said the problem of people using the model hands to flip people off was a widespread nuisance.
"It's usually teenagers doing this for fun so yeah not the worst thing ever," Marion said.