Last weekend, in the next chapter of our son's moving-on process, the three of us put our heads together and committed to assembling three pieces of furniture.
The futon was no problem...we'd put that up and taken it down when Joe moved into his college digs, thanks to instructions we downloaded from the internet. We got a pleasant surprise when Mr. Ginley figured out where to put the little metal doo-hickey that keeps the cushion on the frame. (Who knew there were holes in the frame? You couldn't tell from the diagram.)
The rolling cart (after a slight mishap with unscrewing and re-screwing a couple of pieces) was relatively easy.
The desk took two hours.
Many jokes are made about Ikea furniture (directions in Swedish, etc.). But while this particular item was not manufactured in the land of "ja," it certainly had many of the same characteristics as its Swedish cousin.
The first order of business was opening up the box and releasing the components from their plastic wrappers. I was in charge of sorting the various screws and geegaws needed to attach everything. And to hand them over as requested.
The desk was comprised of a variety of pressboard pieces. Fortunately, it was a small desk, but it did have two drawers, so that made things just a little more complex. Mr. Ginley grappled with the instructions, which showed how to assemble the piece upside down.
Surprisingly, there was very little cursing, no yelling, and only one do-over.
The process made Mr. Ginley and I nostalgic for our own growing-up experiences.
Bill's story was the bicycles.
One Christmas morning when he and his younger brother were 10 and 11 (or so), they awoke to find goldenrod banana bikes under the tree. The bicycles had been assembled Christmas Eve by an inebriated dad and two older brothers. The instructions were in Japanese. There was much swearing and nasty hangovers all around the next day. But Bill and his brother were ecstatic, and insisted on riding their bikes in the cold weather (against their father's protests), which wreaked havoc with the green (yes, green) tires.
I'm sure my parents put together their share of toys. Like the baby buggies my sister and I received. I'm guessing those were a pain to assemble. It seems to me a lot of the games and things we got were put together after Christmas morning, and we (with the help of older siblings) did the assembling.
After last weekend, I thought our work was done for awhile. Alas, Stephanie offered me two bookcases, free of charge. (Us, turn down a place to house books? Surely you jest!) One was complete the other, you got it, was "assembly required."
The box is going to sit around for just a little while longer.
At least until Mr. Ginley's screwdriver hand recovers from its carpal tunnel.
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