If only feet were capable of lending a third hand
My big toe hurts. The one on my left foot. The appendage that leads the other four little piggies. Why? I dropped a wooden shelf on it. Not deliberately. It slipped as I was attempting to find a third hand while putting together a bathroom shelving unit. You know. One of those things that stands about six feet tall when completed but comes in a box that’s only two feet long.
We have two full baths in our home, one upstairs and one down. That’s fortunate because my lovely wife needs her own, one where she can strew all her cosmetics, creams, lotions and other impedimenta within easy reach.
I have my own tools for daily preparation: razor, deodorant, shaving mug and brush (I never did care much for that canned foam), toothbrush and paste, etc. They are spread out in the second, downstairs bathroom.
However, where my wife has a small linen closet in her bathroom, I do not.
Which means I have needed since we moved into the house some kind of shelves or cupboard to store towels, underwear and other items.
Since it’s rather small, my bathroom would not accommodate a free-standing cabinet or other container. What I needed was something that would fit where it wouldn’t be in the way.
An ad in our paper showed just what I needed: a three-shelf wooden unit that has long legs that straddle the commode. It’s useful but takes up no ready space.
Having purchased items like this in the past, I am fully aware that none ever come assembled. I don’t do very well with instructions and they might as well be in some other language – which they usually are, in addition to some version of English (“Hold into slat 7 the broun nob that to the wall connects blue screw, times three’). The pictures showing how to put something together usually leave a lot to be desired, too.
It was true again with this project.
I tackled it after my wife had gone to bed. I find it’s much easier to build and do things like that if she’s not in the room (or the house). I don’t know why. I suppose it’s just one of those man things.
I opened the carton to find a lot of wooden pieces and two plastic bags containing a variety of wood and metal parts. A plastic bag held each piece and there was the usual white Styrofoam packing material that had to be disposed of.
Setting aside the shelves, sides and braces, I had to dig through the box for the instructions. The best part was the page showing pictures of and defining what each piece would accomplish. That page also showed me what tools I would need: a Phillips screwdriver, Allen wrench and mallet. It said nothing about splints, bandages or iodine.
What the instructions also didn’t contain was a warning that you’d better have a second or even third person to get the thing started or be a contortionist. To give you an idea of what I had to do, the first step was to make sure the top half of the sides were facing in the correct direction (one edge is finished while the one that faces the wall is not), take the cross member that would initially hold them together, insert wooden pegs into four holes in that piece’s edge and then fit it into corresponding cavities in the sides. Once that is accomplished, I had to hold it together while reaching for a pair of bolts that fit into holes passing through the sides and into the brace. On top of all that I mounted a shelf board that contained four round nuts that fit into holes at each corner in its bottom. Three of them fit fairly snug; the fourth kept falling out because it was loose.
The idea then was to hold that shelf in place while once more slipping bolts through holes in the side and into pre-drilled holes in the shelf edge, tightening same so the seven or eight pieces I was holding would not fall apart.
That was about when I dropped the top shelf on my big toe and the rest of the assemblage fell to the floor.
Did I mention I was doing this in my bare feet? Probably not a good idea, but then, when have I ever had one of those?
Hopping around on one foot for about 30 seconds while biting my lip to stifle any noises denoting pain, ( I did not want my wife to hear me) I tackled the project again. I remained calm. I got the bolts started and managed to pull it all tight.
No problem. Right? Wrong. I realized I had put the top shelf on with the unfinished edge facing out. In other words, it was backwards. Knowing I was going to have to change that, I put the other two shelves in before taking the first one out. At least, I figured, the sides wouldn’t be flopping around offering another opportunity for injury.
Once I had the top section assembled, the rest went without incident. It probably took me about an hour from start to finish.
I don’t understand why things are made that way. However, the unit was manufactured in China so I figured, what with more than a billion people there, getting an extra set of hands to help wouldn’t be as great a problem for them as it is for me.
What did I learn?
Nothing of consequence since I will likely never again face assembling such a device. I suppose I could offer to put them together for other people. I just don’t think I have enough toes to make a career out of it.
Do you?
Have a good day.
Jim Pletcher is the Herald-Standard business editor. E-mail: jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.