What do you get when you combine a few eldest daughters and a litany of IKEA furniture that needs to be built?
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If you said, “Oh God, this joke isn’t funny,” you would be right, it was not funny.
This weekend, I found myself building a bookshelf, a TV stand, and two chairs. I recently purchased a bookshelf for my apartment, and then one of my buddies is in the process of moving and needed help putting together some of her furniture. I was basically Bob the Builder-ing all over the Riverbend region.
My friends and I had a little party on Friday night, complete with pizza, wine and the newest episodes of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” playing on the television, which was sitting on the floor, as we built a TV stand. We pored over pages of instructions and sorted screws and tried to keep all the pieces organized.
It looked like a tornado had gone through my buddy’s new living room, with bits of styrofoam everywhere and a toolbox left half-open with drill bits spilling out of it. But we were determined to make that house a home.
Now, I’ll admit it right now, I do not take the lead on these projects. I try my best to be a team player, but I’m much happier to sit back and follow the directions of people who know better than me.
I am not a hands-on person. I am not a visual learner. Give me that little booklet of instructions, and I’ll stare at it for minutes at a time, trying to make sense of the pictures.
Suffice it to say, I retrieved screws and Allen wrench-ed them as I was directed, but I did not take initiative. I let myself be led.
But the satisfaction! The pure joy when we finally righted the TV stand and it stood by itself, when we wrestled the drawer into its slot and it glided right in.
Yes, there was one leg on the TV stand that didn’t quite screw in right, that we agreed would need to be hot-glued on in the future. Yes, there were several leftover screws that felt a little bit like maybe we had missed a direction or two. But the TV stand was upright, and it held the weight of the TV, and it looked damn good in that living room.
We built the chairs in record time and felt pretty good about ourselves. As I drove home that night, I was pleased. I knew I had a bookshelf out for delivery, and now I was certain I could whip that into shape with no problem.
Until, of course, the bookshelf arrived in several little pieces, and I was thrown for a loop.
I spread all the pieces out on the floor. My friends weren’t there to help me. I was building this bookshelf solo, with no one to lead me or decode the directions for me. I sat in a pile of screws and shelves and opened the instruction booklet with trepidation. I had something to prove.
Remember the beginning of this blog post re: eldest daughter, control freak, etc.? You can maybe picture how this went. As hour one slipped into hour two and the bookshelf began to take shape, I felt my temper flaring.
Deep breaths, I reminded myself as I unscrewed one of the shelves I had put in backwards several steps earlier. This will not defeat me, I manifested when I dropped the Allen wrench from the screw for the 20th time.
And, in fact, it did not defeat me. Instead, I defeated that bookshelf and built it and now it stands proudly in the corner of my apartment, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Yes, it’s a little unsteady. No, I wouldn’t recommend sitting next to it, lest it falls and crushes you. But it’s upright, and that’s all I’m asking for at the moment.
I’m not going to be hired onto a construction site anytime soon, but I’m pretty proud of the furniture building I did this weekend. And now, I will be taking a break for a long, long time. If you need help putting something together, call someone else. I’m out to lunch.
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