When I first got divorced, my ex had moved into his parents house, so much of the furniture we had in our two bedroom apartment was now crammed into a one bedroom 700 square foot space. I had furniture coming out of my ears. My son slept in the dining room that had been made into a make shift bedroom. I purchased some heavy living room curtains and put him to sleep every night thinking I would give anything to have a door to shut. In the morning, he would emerge from his bedroom like the encore of a Broadway play. "now presenting, Samuel McKinney".
It wasn't until 9 months later that my ex had a nice healthy chunk of change to put down on a brand new house, and was now requesting the furniture that we had agreed to split. I remember standing there in the living room as him and his brother picked up my couch, flipped it upside down, and shook the contents onto the floor before carting it down the stairs. Cheerios, matchbox cars and three little mismatched socks sat at my feet as I curled into a ball on the floor in my now empty apartment. I was left with all the bedroom furniture and nothing more than a rocking chair for the living room. Sam would curl up on the rocker in the morning and watch tv while I tried to convince myself that I would start again and everything would be ok.
That is where IKEA came in. IKEA is great, don't get me wrong, but unless you have an engineering degree and a ton of tools, you are going to resort to sitting on the box that the piece of furniture came in, staring at the picture thinking "this would look great all set up." I had many things that sat on the floor in 35 pieces, mocking me at my inability to create anything by hand. Like a jigsaw puzzle, I would pick up a piece now and then and try to make sense of it, only to go and lay on my bed in agony, dreaming of a life of "no assembly required."
"I really need to meet someone so that he can put all this crap together."
Maybe I needed to extend my dating search to the engineering department at the University. Can you put that perquisite into your dating profile? Can I try and pick up a guy at a construction site just so I know I can stop eating off the floor? I began to search for guys that had any type of construction knowledge. Guys with a garage are the best. If they live in an apartment you know their tools are in storage and they are spending time at the gym or the computer lab. I needed a guy with a five foot 20,000 piece capacity tool box. A guy that would outline his hammer with a black marker on the wall of his garage like a crime scene. A guy that had sawdust on his shoes and clauses on his hands. A man that prided his self on his workbench and would never dream of putting his car IN the garage.
I needed a guy that could open the jar of spaghetti sauce for me.
As the months went on, I purchased a kitchen table that was a display table at target. I started to pay extra to have things assembled for me and then delivered. I planned trips to IKEA when my mother was going to be in town for the holidays. I had dinner parties only when I purchased things that were hard to open. I threw house parties when something broke "Hey, while you are here, can someone help me fix this?" I waited to buy new curtains when a friend of mine came over to see my new place. I set them on the bed with a sign that said "hang me" and treated it like a to do list for myself. Pictures leaned against the wall with a hammer on the floor when my friends visited and treated it like I wanted their opinion on where to hang it.
My tool box has exactly 6 items in it....
1. a hammer
2. a screwdriver that is too big to fit in any standard screw
3. 14 feet of wire in case I want someone to hang a picture for me
4. a bottle of super glue that is attached to the bottom of the 14 feet of wire
5. a green skittle
6. the directions to my old ipod
Christmas is the worst time of the year for me. It was different when I was married. My son would open the gifts, he would sit in a sea of Christmas Narnia and look at us with big Christmas eyes and tell us which gift he wanted to play with first. I would then throw it at my husband and go and make a cup of coffee. 2 hours later, I would emerge and everything would be magically assembled. It was like the elves had set up shop in our living room and put all the toys together. I would wade through enough wrapping paper to make Hallmark jealous and move on to admire the dustpan my husband bought me.
When you are single, you don't realize how much of a nightmare three little words can be.
some
assembly
required
Toy packaging should have a pain chart on the front of the box for parents.
A box with a smile in the corner means it is super easy to put together. All you have to do is unscrew the top and the toy pops out with batteries and even entertains your child.
A box with a smirk in the corner means it may take a little bit of patience to put the toy together but with a pair of scissors and a little space cleared on the kitchen table and you will have that toy moving in no time.
A box with a bottle of vodka on it and a couple of words like #!!$ER coming out of the person's mouth means that you may require a degree in physics, the paramedics standing by your front door and an assembly space the size of a gymnasium. The age of intent for the child toy will actually be a span of 4 to 5 years as that is how long it may take you to actually hand the toy to the kid.
This year, I sat by my child while he opened each toy and would hurl it at me with the phrase "open this mom." I had my tool box handy, moved the skittle out of the way and pulled out the screwdriver so I could open every gift. My question is...what is up with taping each and every piece of the toy down? Do we fear they will get up and run away? Are they being held hostage? I don't feel that I should have to spend all Christmas day pealing pieces of tape off my fingers just to remove chewbacca's foot from a piece of cardboard. I vow next year to only buy video games and books as they will never be required to put together.
I fear that the next guy I date will be inundated with projects. I will walk him around the house like he is Mike Holmes and point out things like "here is where I wanted to put the couch, but I can't move it." I then sigh, and walk away slowly. On date three, he finds a nice "to do list" next to his car keys. I can hear the tires squealing now as he runs away.
I think the best bet is to continue to invite my friends over when I buy new stuff.
...Until then, I will continue to have picture frames leaning against walls, door knobs that are about to fall off, and a single green skittle in my tool box.
