Assembly Required

 My wife gave me a suggestion about something to write about.  I put together a bed frame the other day.  Every time I assemble a piece of furniture, I say to her that I am NOT going to do it again.  But it seems I've said this about every six months of our married life.  Hardly anything arrives pre-assembled.  Once in a great while we'll buy something the store assembles.  But I have assembled everything from bicycles to grills to furniture and bedframes.

Once we bought a computer cabinet that required two days to assemble.  And after that I swore I'd never assemble anything again.  But guess what?  I have said the same thing many times over.  It never fails that after some project I say I'll never do it again.  But six months later I'll do another.  I have said so many times, "I'll never do it again!"  Only to find out that I have to.  It never fails.

I asssembled that bed frame which required no tools for assembly that I thought I could do in five minutes.  Those five minutes turned into more like 45 minutes and I had to take a shower afterwards because I got so sweaty doing it.  Afterwards I came out here to smoke my pipe and guess what I told my wife.  You guessed it.  Never again.  I'm too old for this stuff, I told her.  If we had a neighborhood kid around I would have paid 20 bucks for him to put it together.

Is there a moral to this story this morning?  I've said, "Never again" many times in my life.  The Universe makes people that always come preassembled, but not put furniture together.    You might think it should be the other way around.  There's more furniture than people.  

But the Universe doesn't work that way.  People need stuff and apparently a lot of it.  And stuff has to be assembled.  What I find funny is that a bike arrives in a box and in big bold letters on the outside of every box are the two words every father dreads the most:  ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.  You order furniture and nowhere on the box does it say it comes assembled.  How could such a huge thing come in such a small box?  I got the box with a bed frame and on the outside of the box was a picture of the assembled item.  

That's all one needs to know.  I get a box with anything inside and I automatically know that assembly is required.  Would I buy it otherwise?  Only an idiot would assume a bike comes pre-assembled.  Unless I bought a bike off the bike rack in the store, if it comes in a box I'd know.  No one needs to tell me a bike in a box needs assembly.  I don't need a picture telling me the bed frame needs assembly.  I knew it needed assembly.  Everyone knows it needs assembly.  If it comes in a box you just know.  

I just thought it would take five minutes out of my life.    No box ever tells you how long it will take out of your life to put something together.  If it did, no one would buy it.  It just might take a day from your life--or maybe two.  I wonder what I'd do with all that extra time.  Maybe it's best that I'll never know.  I'd probably spend that time smoking my pipe.  No assembly required for that.  This morning I am on the patio with my KS7 Churchwarden pipe with some Apricots and Cream Aromatic pipe tobacco.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave