During the move from Seattle to
Scottsdale last year, I took along three bookcases totaling ten feet wide by
seven feet tall. One two-footer went MIA. A second one, four feet wide, was
virtually destroyed. With only one bookcase surviving, it was time to order new
ones. I’m not one for hitting the road and looking at what the various
furniture stores have to offer — aside from the fact that they are usually overpriced.
So, I took the lazy and cheap way out — I ordered two of them online. What
really turned me on to these particular bookshelves was the fact that it said,
“Some Assembly Required.” That alone was music to my ears as directions
and me don’t always see eye to eye (I’m convinced that it’s a male thing). As
it turned out, however, it should have read, “Total Assembly Required,
Must Have a Degree in Engineering.
Individuals with Only Two Brain Cells Should Not Attempt Assembly. Ask
for a Woman’s Help.” Yeah, like that last part will ever happen. We bachelors have
too much pride to ask for a woman to help on a simple project of this nature; even though we secretly admit to ourselves
that they are better at reading instructions than we are. This last sentence will self-destruct after
reading.
As I said above, there were two new bookshelves laying on the floor in their packages. The assembly of the first one by little ol’ me involved a string
of never-before-used swear words, five drinks, two packs of smokes,
a smashed thumb (still relearning how to use a hammer), and four chill pills.
Total time to assemble — four hours. The instruction booklet, in size two font,
was in English, Spanish and French. I probably would have been better off
choosing to follow either the Spanish or French versions. Of course,
the instructions and everything else were made in China (what isn’t these
days?). The spelling and grammar were definitely at a fourth grade level — which didn't help as I’m
not quite there yet.
They showed pictures of the parts
page (nuts, bolts, shelves, etc.) but gave no quantities. The biggest fear of
assembling anything is that they did not send enough parts. In my case, they
over-sent, which immediately made me question whether or not I had left something
out during assembly. When they said to screw something in with your fingers … forget it. The
screws required my biggest hammer. Then, to add insult to injury, they took
their big “Made in China” label and glued it right to the finished side-panel
for all the world to see. I tried peeling it off, but that didn’t work. I then
tried hot, soapy water on a rag, but that didn’t work either. I eventually
resorted to looking through my arsenal of dangerous chemicals and finally chose
Goo Gone … it worked. Disclaimer: I have
no fiduciary interest in Goo Gone, but that stuff really, really works
miracles. Anyway, I’m not sure who the actual engineer was that chose the
particular glue for the label, but he or she must have first developed the glue for
the space shuttle’s outer tiles. If Goo Gone didn’t work, my next option was going
to be a couple of M-80’s that I had leftover from the 4th of July. Hey, when desperate, one must resort to desperate measures. Right guys?
When I got up the following morning,
I took on the second bookshelf … completing that one in one hour flat…minus ten
minutes of “stupid time” on my part. The bottom line — they look nice … well
worth the investment in spite of the “hell” the first one put me through. Be
forewarned: the next time you (males only) see something that says “some assembly
required,” look out. If you aren’t willing to ask for help (from a woman), then
prepare yourself by having enough smokes, alcohol and drugs on hand to tackle
the project. Or you could just invite your male buddies over to watch sports
and get wasted while assembling whatever it was you were stupid enough to buy
in the first place. If their IQ happens to be in your range (mine hovers around
50 -- on a good day), then you can fully expect disaster.
