‘Some Assembly Required’

When we were moving Kaylee into her dorm room…and it was 90 degrees…no a/c…and 5 of us cramped into a 6×8 cell small dorm room…everyone scurrying around trying to help get things in ‘order’….Shane asked the question…a question he’d probably like to have thought about before letting it roll from his tongue.

“What can I do to help?”

Middle Child pipes up….unaware of the implications when she said,   “You can put the fan together…….”

I could feel the tension rise up from the depths of the earth, through his feet and into his body.   I’m sure he must have been thinking, ‘why?  why did I ask that question’.    I glanced over at him trying not to make eye contact…bracing for the worst.  You see…Shane doesn’t do well….’assembling’.

At that moment  my mind wandered off…eyes gazing slightly up and to the right.   Like a giant ‘thought bubble’….I had flashbacks of the grill we bought 10 years ago.  The one that could ‘easily be assembled in 2 hours’….the one that actually took 10 hours to assemble.  The one where the neighbors had to shut their windows from the profanity and mothers pushing strollers had to shield little ears.

I then flashed to the Little Tykes training wheel bike.  The one we put together at night so it would be a surprise in the morning…..The one that came with directions but ‘who needs directions…this is simple enough’.   The one where the training wheels were molded with a R and a L on them for left and right…but we didn’t see that …because we didn’t read the directions…..and he ended up getting so frustrated not being about to get the last wheel on…that he took a hammer and whacked it a number of times.  I believe the recollection is something about  (whack)…’get on (whack)  there you (whack) mother (whack) effing (whack) son of a bitch (whack) stupid effing (whack!  whack whack whack)….THERE!  It’s on!’

And then we waited 2 weeks for the replacement wheels to arrive.

Oh!  There’s the storm door!  Why pay $50 for someone to install it when you can do it yourself?  (even though you only have half of the tools required and have never installed a storm door)   8 hours later?  Bloody knuckles?   More closed windows from the neighbors?  Whalla!

Then there’s that time we lived in the double and the light fixture needed replacing.  Up and down the 3 flights of steps to the basement can get very irritating…so let’s just bypass that part and NOT turn the main switch off.   I stood there watching….breathless….watching that screwdriver in his hands…and then it happened.    It hit something live.   I’ll never forget the sound of the ZZZZAP and the thud as he flew off the step ladder…ceiling blackened.

With the last *buzzzzzz* vision, I snapped back to reality and he was almost done with the fan.  Whew!  Then we moved on to the book shelf.   It came with directions written for a person with superhuman sight to read the little tiny type and poorly drawn illustrations of the many panels distinguishable only by the number of holes in them.  *sigh*

From past experience we both knew that the painted sides all go one way….we’ve unassembled many wooden shelves in our day because all the painted sides were not facing the same way.  We got to the second tier and… damn it!  We were supposed to use the long pegs and not the short!    Unassemble.  Reassemble.  Okay…then we get all the way through to the last shelf….the very top.    Only to learn the panels we used along the sides….are really the top and bottom panels.   Unassemble.  Reassemble.   Done!

All in all it went well.   The fan didn’t fly off it’s base and decapitate anyone when the speed was turned up to MAX …the shelving unit held stuff without collapsing…..and the kids in all the other dorms…with doors wide open…didn’t learn any ‘new words or profane phrases’… or have to wonder who that old crazy frickin irish dude with the hammer was.

*Kaylee texted me the next day (yes, I ‘text’ now, lol) and let me know ‘the shelves are holding up good’.    lol.   Did she think otherwise?  Sheesh!