Explain
Building the pyramids in terms of flat-pack IKEA furniture
Building the pyramids is essentially the world’s most ambitious attempt to assemble a Billy bookcase without a single Allen key or a shred of instructions in Swedish.
Pharaoh Khufu essentially acts as the impatient partner who bought the unit, insists he knows exactly how the dowels fit, and keeps shouting at the workforce because the Giza plateau is uneven. You start by laying out two million limestone blocks, which are the heavy, unmarked cardboard boxes delivered to your hallway that you’re convinced contain all the parts but are actually just forty kilograms of hidden misery. The workforce, a mix of exhausted skilled artisans and very confused farmers, spends thirty years trying to align the base corners, discovering that if the foundation is off by even an inch, the entire four-hundred-foot monument will wobble like a drunk student trying to navigate an escalator at King’s Cross.
You finally reach the peak, which is that one tiny, crucial plastic screw that somehow always ends up missing, meaning you have to stare at a gaping hole in the top of your limestone masterpiece while contemplating your own mortality. It is a long, dusty process that inevitably ends with you losing the spirit level, screaming at a labourer called Dave, and having an extra stone slab left over that you are terrified to throw away in case the roof falls in. Once the capstone is finally pushed into place, you realise you have built a tomb for the ages, yet you still have no idea how to fold the cardboard box it came in.
Where the analogy breaks downThe pyramids are designed to last for eternity, whereas an IKEA wardrobe will likely collapse if you look at it too aggressively during a house move.