Some Assembly Required (and a Little Prozac Wouldn’t Hurt Either.)

I received a new table for Christmas. It came in a box with the instructions that some assembly would be needed. So, I enlisted the unwilling help of my son Bob. Bob does not like putting things together, even making a sandwich can frustrate him. But it is Christmas, and he does love me, so I used that to my advantage.

He got his toolbox, I grabbed some Tylenol, and we began. We labored. We sweated. We worked into the night. Finally, we got the box open. Then came the real fun, trying to decipher the instructions written in a tiny print with more steps than the Taj Mahal.

They promised we would only need a screwdriver, a hammer, and an adjustable wrench. But, by the time we were done, we had used every tool in the garage except the screwdriver, hammer, and adjustable wrench. ( Although, at times, several uses for the hammer did cross Bob’s mind,)

After six hours of trying to get A into B, connect D to F, and slide G through H while bypassing E altogether until step 9 (we were to overlap h with I), we finally completed the project. The legs were on backwards, the top was upside down, and there were six screws unaccounted for. “ But it does not look anything like the picture,” Bob groaned. “Sure it does,” I assured him; then, snatching the picture from the box, I cut it into tiny pieces and scrambled them to match the contraption we had just built. “ See, it looks exactly like the picture.’

“ Maybe we should take it back to the store and get some help, from the people who made the table in the first place, Bob said. They will know how to put it together.”

I had to agree; I am sure the person who designed the table did not mean the top to be upside down and the legs backward. So, we took it to the store, and within minutes, we had a beautiful table. They made it look so easy. But take my advice: beware of gifts that say “assembly required.”

Oops, I must go. Bob needs help making a sandwich.