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22 july 2002

some assembly required

Took this photo awhile back when hiking. I either ran into idiots, or an impending sacrifice over the falls. Way to hold onto that baby!

My back is feeling much better. Just in time for me to assemble stuff. Erk.

But first, a bit of history. One of my ancestors sailed over here in the 1700's as an indentured servant. He was a cabinet maker, and sailed from the port of Liverpool to start a new life in a new country. I'm certain that he had high hopes for his own, and his decendants' successes.

Fast-forward 250 years. I think it's safe to say that the cabinet-making gene didn't wait around for me to be born. I'm pretty certain it ditched somewhere in the early 1900's, leaving me to stand, boggled, at the put-together-storage-whingding-department at Target.

So we go to the store to get some quicky-rig storage doodads. You know, stuff to organize your closet. Hanging shelves for the utility closet. A stand-alone hanger-upper portable armoire thingy. We get them home and divide labor; I end up assembling doodads.

Oh, yeah. This will be successful.

So I open box number one, which contains the portable armoire, into which we're throwing some clothes for storage. There are, like, ten poles, two different poles, a heap of canvas, and a partridge in a pear tree. I dig frantically for the directions. You know, a piece of paper with words, to be followed in chronilogical order.

I find a single piece of paper, but it is missing words. It's an instructional pictograph.

My mission: assemble items on floor, using this handy cave painting.

I begin to shove the poles together, then into the frame holder-together-er thing at the base. So far, the cave painting has served me well. It is now time to drape the canvas thing--are we sure that this is a storage bin? It could be a tent, for all I know--over the frame and poles. I'm certain that several days have passed before I accomplish this task. It's hard to tell, as the canvas spends much of its time over my head, sheltering me from such distractions as sunrise.

I consult the pictograph again. The buffalo, canvas draped along his horns, points me toward the dancing horse, who is roasting marshmallows over an open fire. Ah, yes--time to assemble the upper poles inside the canvas, then set it on fire.

No, wait...

Okay, poles shoved together, canvas zipped up, everything's looking sturdy. I look up from my work, feeling accomplished, only to find that there is another box of utility shelves to assemble.

Ooh, even better--a screwdriver and needle-nose pliers are represented in pictograph form on these instructions. They are not supplied. But of course.

So, I'm on my way out of town for a couple of weeks, but stay tuned because I'm going to update while enjoying my travels. Where am I going? Far away, that's where! Guess you'll have to check back on Wednesday to find out where I am, huh. Later.