I appear to be missing the “furniture assembly” gene………..

I used to have this little teeny tiny foldout table as a night stand. It was so tiny and didn’t hold much but it was useable so I never worried about it.

Then the cats started jumping on it since it was not that far for them, knocking stuff over in the middle of the night and really annoying me.

So I decided to go buy an actual night stand…I’d so rather use the money for clothes, or shoes but being a grown up sucks, so off I went.

I got a really nice chocolate brown one, with a drawer that matched my dresser perfectly.

I get it home and in the door (thanks Dad btw) and opened the box to find tons and tons of pieces.

Rather than try to explain my frustration, I will allow you to take a peek at the inner dialogue that occurred at various points while trying to put this piece o’ _______together!

“Ok, well that looks to be a lot of pieces-no prob., I can do this. I’m a single, independent gal and I don’t need anyone to help me put together one tiny night stand.”

(So I remove the pieces one by one from the box and lay them out on the floor according to number)

“Okay well that wasn’t so hard, the instructions have numbers and it looks like they’re all here, no problem.

I wonder if the fact that I only have a hand held screwdriver will slow me down. Nah, it’s probably fine.

Hmmm, it says pre drilled hole, but I only seem to find a small indent where it says the hole should be, okay well I’ll just screw in the thing and that will be fine.

Okay why is this thing veering off to the side, I think I’m approaching it straight.

Ohhhh dear, the screw has cracked through the side, I wonder if I can cover that up. Yeah, it’s just the inside of the drawer, should be fine.

Okay, so it says there are four little gliders-two for the inside of the cabinet and two for the drawer- why do the pictures look exactly the same-how am I supposed to tell what is CL and CR and DL and DR?  Okay, well I looked at the pictures carefully; yeah I’m sure that’s right...(It wasn’t until I was done I noticed the name engraved on the side of the pieces)

Gee that hammering of the back piece is awful loud banging against the floor, I hope I’m not bothering my neighbors, better put it on my lap (even I can see how stupid that was….)

OUCH, yeah okay let’s put that back on the floor

Alright, let’s put these baby together”

I should mention by now that approximately 3 hours have passed. Yes, the handheld screwdriver did slow me down.

But I was confident in my abilities, and put the thing together and was ready stand it up and put the drawer in.

“Okay, this actually looks like the picture, except why does that bottom shelf not look like the rest…OH CRAP, I put it on upside down, now I have to look at the wood side…okay well I can fix that, I’ll just undo this and this and this…hmm why isn’t this coming apart…OH DAMMIT-I HAVE ALREADY NAILED THE BACK PIECE ON!!

“Well I am much to tired and pissed off to bother fixing it now. I’ll just cover it up with stuff. I will put the drawer in and then I’m done.

Okay, just slide it in like this….like this……like this? .c’mon, go in you little bastard-why won’t you go in?  Well I will re read the instructions again, yes that’s right and that’s right, and that’s right-. Why won’t this go in properly-you know what, screw it, I can still put stuff on the top….”

And that is how it remains currently!

I did briefly consider taking my hammer and smashing it to pieces, but I figure with my luck the claw would bounce back into my eye or something.

I will admit, with only a tiny amount of shame, that I did place a rather sniffly, whiny phone call to my dad and he will be coming in to fix it for me…...If he can -as there is a small chance that all the sideways screws and holes may affect the outcome of that.

As an aside, since I have “Grover wrists” as my dad calls them, Sunday morning I could barely move my hand without searing pain. I think I may invest in a automatic drill.