“Getting things done around here is like mating elephants. It’s done at a very high level. It’s accomplished with a great deal of bellowing and it takes two years for anything to be produced.”
Remember that sign? It used to hang around office cubicles a few years back.
I never knew how true it was, though, until the past couple of nights.
No, the nights did not involve mating of any kind.
They did, however, involve the worst thing you can bring upon yourself. Worse than grocery shopping with hungry toddlers. Worse than moving. Even worse than helping someone else move.
It’s that bad. I almost can’t say it.
It involves assembling a piece of furniture.
Yes, it involves taking a box with roughly the same dimensions of an interstate billboard, and with the average weight of the aforementioned elephants, and turning 38 pieces of wood, 2,728 screws, cam bolts, and dowels into a piece of working furniture, using instructions written by someone for whom English is almost certainly a second language.
See, this is one of the sacrifices a parent has to make. Miss Priss wanted this bed. We went from furniture store to furniture store, looking at bed after bed. We looked at beds that could easily be delivered by a big truck and assembled by a couple fellas that do. This. All. Day. Long. REAL furniture. But no. She liked a bed that comes in a box.
So. Armed with the required tools (and rejecting their sorry excuse for an Allen wrench), we went to work. The instructions said, “two hour assembly time.”
It took two hours just to sort the effin’ hardware.
And let me tell you, we’re no slouches. Mr. Nerd is quite the handyman, and we have done most of our repairs, including the renovation of an old house top-to-bottom, by ourselves. We can handle most projects.
But this one kicked our collective butts.
So tonight, we move to Round 3 of the “two hour assembly”. And we will attempt to do it without the aforementioned “great deal of bellowing”.
Someone hold me.
August 7, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Can you spout profanities in a temporary fit of Tourette’s Syndrome? that might be fun!
I fell your pain, WN. I truly do. Here’s hoping that your Day three is the charm that finds the bed built.
August 7, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I learned my first good cuss words from my folks putting together a bicycle one Christmas Eve night. They were so put out with the directions they didn’t notice me at the top of the stairs.
I’ve had a few sets of directions using English words but not English word order. That made it tough.
August 7, 2007 at 12:59 pm
But it is a very cool bed!
August 7, 2007 at 2:49 pm
I admire her taste, but I think I might have opted for someone who’d accept pay for assembly!!
August 7, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Hahaha I’ve sworn off ikea furnishings for the same reason. But I’m a dab hand with an allun key. Once spent all night assembling two sideboards and didn’t realise for a month that the doors were upside down, I just thought the handle placement was for short people! Empathy sister, much empathy!
August 7, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Get used to it. The Wife and I inspected and ordered a big-assed entertainment center from our favorite furniture store last month… only to have it arrive in boxes. Never happened before, in years of shopping at that store. The salesman’s response? “Ooops. Sorry. Did I forget to mention that?”
August 7, 2007 at 4:31 pm
It bugs me to pieces (no pun intended) that most furniture now has to be put together at home. It should be cheaper because of that. I would almost happily pay someone to put that stuff together….if that weirdo existed! I think their assembled in whatever amount of time should be TRIPLED! 🙂
August 7, 2007 at 5:25 pm
When Nooze needed a bed, our friend BUILT it. Out of scrap wood.
I’d give you his number, but he’s currently in Afghanistan.
After our kitchen table experience (thanks, Ikea!), we have resorted to purchasing the ‘slightly dinged’ floor model of items that we like.
They aren’t perfect, but we don’t have to assemble them, either!
August 7, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Best of luck with round #3!
August 7, 2007 at 7:50 pm
To minimize the risk to our marriage, we had to move to a city that didn’t have an Ikea. I very rarely feel steam coming out of my ears. I can probably count on one hand the number of times it’s happened to me in my life. They were all prompted by furniture assembly nightmares.
Such good parents you are…I know so many folks who would have tossed it in and brought the thing back. But you stuck it out. Good on ya!
August 7, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Oh, I don’t know… there’s another kind of sacrifice parents can make in the barbecue pit or on the altar out back.
One it may do well to explain to the little ones next time they defy reason and make work for you.
August 7, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Chenier? My defense is I have not heard the song for a long time. I’d have still mispelled it 😦
August 7, 2007 at 8:59 pm
hooteriffic!!!
August 7, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Cute bed, I understand her desire to have it. But the assembly? Holy cow. The husband around here handles that department, swearing included.
August 8, 2007 at 6:41 am
Can I buy that at your 2010 garage sale?
August 8, 2007 at 7:06 am
Um, Biff? Yeah, you can buy it. But bring your tools — it’s going to have to be taken apart to get it out of the room. I’m thinking tearing out a wall will be easier …
Carmi? About the marriage thing? At the end of the instructions, I could have sworn they provided 1-800 numbers for cheap divorce attorneys …
August 8, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Oh this brings back HORRIBLE memories. BER and I bought a lot of furniture that we had to assemble when we moved into the new house.
I can’t even stomach the idea of EVER doing it again and it’s been over a year.
August 9, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Saweet bed though!
August 12, 2007 at 5:34 pm
NOTHING is worse! But it is a great bed.