comeuppance
So I bought a 2 door stackable storage organizer over the weekend. You know, one of those wooden, 2 door cabinet thingies that can be assembled. And last evening, I set about assembling it. "Easy Assembly, No Tools Required!" - is what it proclaimed on the box. Here is an honest account of what happened. I laid out all the pieces; the different kinds of screws, nails, dowels, hinge pins and other such implements on the carpet. I looked at the instructions. I started the assembly process. I got confused. I studied the pictures hard. I got even more confused. I continued the assembly process. I started getting impatient. I continued irregardless. At one point, I came to this instruction : "Attach Strike Plates to top corner of Doors to create left and right doors using Plate Screws. Strike Plate holes are not pre-drilled". Idaho Potatoes! What do you mean they are not pre-drilled? What part of no-tools-required do you not get!? Anyways, thankfully, I've had prior experience with such do-it-yourself purchases from Walmart. So I broke out my tool kit. Another hour later, having used a hammer, screw driver, power drill/screw driver, pliers and measuring tape, I had that thing up. Of course, at this point I realized that 60% of the unfinished surfaces were showing up where they should not have been. I gave up for the day. This evening, I re-attacked the problem. An hour later, after undoing everything I did the previous evening and re-doing it, I was finally done. As I look at the cabinet while I blog now, I am filled with a sense of pride. And independence. And a growing realization that the back panel of the cabinet is highly skewed.
And so to bed.
And so to bed.
Comments
1. Assemble by merely using the highly evolved sense for these things gained by years of not doing them properly!
2. Call the wife on pretext of giving company to me, and make sure she sits on the other side of the mess, where the manual with assembling instructions is conveniently placed.
3. Hesitate slightly when in doubt, and she will look it up in the manual and correct me.
4. Give her a sharp glance to exclaim thats what I was gonna do anyways!
It works every time!
DI
PS. "No Tools Required" - translates to "We provide a tiddly screwdriver without a head and an align key (also too hard to grip) in the package".
As for me, well, often times I end up with extra pieces or angles that don't match. I really enjoy putting them together to tell you the truth (there is that sense of pride at the end that makes me feel like a faux engineer!) but there is no telling if the end product is going to be pretty or usable.