Some Assembly Required

If you are a parent, you probably have at some time faced these dreaded words. You just bought the much coveted bicycle for your child. Now all that stands between the said child and bliss is your ability to assemble the bicycle. And then, you read, 'Some assembly required'. While 'some assembly' sounds innocuous, it is actually 'some assembly' (emphasis mine). It usually requires unspecified dexterity with tools or three hands or something else. It is never simple. This may be the moment your child realizes that after all daddy does not know everything. It takes all your ingenuity and skill to get that bicycle put together but you are still left with a lingering worry that the thing may come apart any time landing your child in a ditch.

Of course it is not just children's toys. There is a whole lot of furniture that is available for those of us who believe we are handy enough with tools to put them together or want to save some money by opting for the ready-to-assemble stuff. I have had my share of adventure with these over the years and I am sure many of you can relate to it.

The great looking entertainment centre that you decided to buy is delivered to you in flat packs. The delivery men make them look like they are filled with foam the way they carry them. But trying to move them from the garage (they cannot deliver the boxes inside owing to some insurance limitation) into the house proves to be a non-starter as the boxes are monumentally heavy. So you decide to open them in the garage and carry parts into the family room where the furniture will ultimately stand. This itself is quite a project.

You break into a sweat at the sight of the instructions that run to pages and the bag of screws, bolts, nuts, washers, wing nuts, in short, all kinds of thingummyjigs that are collectively termed 'hardware'. The instructions are often in the form of pictures. What's that? A picture is worth a thousand words, you say? Exactly. Way too many words and you don't have a clue as to what those are. Seriously, I mean you are not interpreting art here. You just want a few precise, well-chosen words telling you what to do. But the company in its infinite wisdom decided that pictures transcend the language barrier. In other words, they are too cheap to provide textual instructions because that would require that they be provided in different languages. The stick figure in the booklet that somehow resembles a dolphin and is supposed to represent you looks cheerful enough, though. So what can go wrong?

You allocate a weekend afternoon and gather up all the parts spread them out along with the hardware. You look at the ridiculous tools that came with the furniture - all that you need to assemble, the package says, usually just a couple of Allen keys, and you decide that you had better break out your own tools. You look for your tool set which probably has the wrong set of spanners (metric instead of US) or missing a few that you loaned to the neighbour who has since moved without returning them. With this rag-tag resources, you plunge into the mysteries of the entertainment centre which is strewn around flat on the ground as various parts.  You peer at the picture to make out if the line there represents the groove in the piece you are holding. Which is outside and which is inside seems hard to make out. What size screw is that, you agonize. While the parts are assigned a number each in the pictures, the actual piece has no such thing on it. So you have to make a guess and hope for the best.

Progress is agonizingly slow especially in the beginning as you hunt for the right part and figure out the right orientation for the pieces often having to turn them around without hitting a window (or maybe hitting it) or the light fixture or the TV. Lining up the pieces to match proves to be tricky in the room which you now wish were larger. Maybe you will need to move that sofa out of here to make room. Then there are the moments when you realize that you made a mistake some steps back and have to pull things apart and go back. The afternoon you allocated for the job is woefully inadequate and in fact you realize it could take a couple of weekends to finish it. You start wondering if you bit off more than you could chew. Just then your wife suggests that maybe you should call in a pro, rubbing salt on the wound. The place looks like a war zone trying everyone's patience and presents tripping hazards to all.

After hours of toil, a lot of sweating and a few broken nails and possibly a crushed finger, at last you finish the piece. A few parts are still left but somehow they never seemed to come up in the instructions. The doors and drawers are serviceable though they look just a little misaligned. But you are done. Finished. There is a sense of relief and even elation at the completion of the project. Now all that is left is to move the whole thing to the wall where it belongs. Of course this requires three or four persons and a lot of swearing and cursing. Inevitably, one of the walls in the house is scratched in the process. Ultimately, everything is in its place and the entertainment centre is ready to serve!

The instructions estimated three hours (ha!) to complete the assembly but it took you the better part of a whole weekend and a day. You have moved all the parts and pieces from the floor but you can hardly pick yourself up. Every bone and muscle in your body is aching. Bruised and cut everywhere, you feel like a wounded warrior. 'Never again', you tell yourself. You somehow manage to get on the couch and collapse there.

The rest of the family is happy now that the room is free once again and there is a handsome new addition to the furniture. Everyone congratulates you (never mind the complaining that went on for a whole week). The wife looks at the finished product admiringly and declares that from now on ready-to-assemble is the way to go. You merely sigh as there is no strength left in your body even to acknowledge. And you are too fatigued even to feel proud. But a couple of aspirins and a long nap restore your spirits and you start to feel that it was worth the blood, sweat and tears. On to the next project then!