putting it together

i spent most of this weekend putting together two sets of shelves.

they're lovely.

and modern.

and moderately priced.

but god damn it, i was fuckin' sweating.

so here's me with these cubits shelves from design with in reach spread all over the family room floor while watching "i shot andy warhol" on indiplex, trying to keep the dog from eating the plastic bits that are littering the floor, sweat trickling down my back. why?

because, these fucking shelves were like Ikea on meth.

no written directions, just pictures that took me about a half an hour to figure out. thafter trying several possibilities, i finally got it. i get the whole thing together, and it's good, but then there's this part where you have to stick these hard plastic pins into these little holes. in order for the pins to go into said little holes, everything has to be lined up just right.

so here comes the sweating.

i'm pushing on the shelves with all my might, using my arms, squeezing with my thighs. and most of them will go in. but there's those few that just won't go. so i try like five different pins in the hopes that maybe, just maybe there was some kind of utterly improbably factory error and the pins are subtly different sizes. what's odd, is that it works. well, sometimes.

finally, it was done.

i flopped back on the carpet, watching the movie through the book shelves and swigged my now warm beer. the previously mentioned dog licked my nose.

properly rested i decided to carry the bookshelves up to the office. of course it would have been more sensible to put the shelves together in my office, but i don't have cable up there. and, i've already watched all the DVDs in the house. so, putting them together in the living room with cable access made the most sense.

needless to say, the bookshelves fell apart while i was carrying them through the kitchen. i swore, wiped my sticky hair out of my face, put them back together and managed to get them up the stairs and into the office.

where they looked fabulous.

and that, was my utterly glamorous saturday night