I dont have the worlds best record with flat pack furniture. I am not the worlds best handyman although generally if I set my mind to something I tend to get it done. Flat pack furniture though is beyond me. I dont know why.

For those wondering what flat pack furniture is, think Ikea. You go to the shops, find something you really like. You go and buy it and are given 8 various pieces of wood, 12 screws, 4 bolts and one hex key. It is the words greatest ever con. Almost like eating at one of those cafes where you have to make your own sandwich. That is fucking insane!

It started with trying to put together a coffee table when I was in my mid 20s. I sat there using a cordless drill trying my best to screw one of the legs to the bottom of the table. Using so much pressure the drill could hardly turn it wouldnt even make an indent. I cursed, I sweated and I threatened people around me until my flat mates dad walked in, took one look and let me know that it would work better if the screw driver wasnt in reverse. I spent the best part of an hour unscrewing something that wasnt even screwed in the first place.

Not long after we got married I suffered the same fate as many men of my generation. I was dragged to Ikea to look through aisle after aisle of weird mental torture boxes. Jigsaws for adults, here build this bookshelf or put this whole kitchen together with nothing more than a hex key and a tray of frozen herring. If I ever meet the sadistic bastard who came up with this I will show them exactly how their useless piece of shit hex key can be used to dismantle a human being.

My beloved wanted a book shelf and being a guy I said no problem. We took home our box of kindling and I set to putting it together. At about the stage I started beating my head against the exposed brick wall my wife told me to go and get a drink. By the time I got back, she had put the whole thing together. No thought for my male ego at all.

So now we have a baby coming and Heidi just happens to fall in love with a cot/change table set that just happens to come in a flat pack box. It cost way too much to be delivered in three boxes, none more than 3 inches high. Time to hit the firewood merry go round again and see what we get when we bolt random pieces of wood together.

The change table was first. I sat down in the lounge and half an hour later there sat a beautiful change table. I looked at it with a mixture of price and wonderment. Finally I had proved myself to the flat pack gods. I had shown myself worthy of the hex key.

We then sat down with all the pieces of the cot and set to putting it together. Now this was not as easy as the change table, you had to use brute force for some of it and then you actually needed hand eye co-ordination for other parts. It was like an hour long ballet and at the end of it was a cot that our unborn child would be happy to sleep in.

Well at least it would have been if it wasnt too wide to fit out the loungeroom door. The stupid peice of shit was stuck in our lounge. We tried all possible angles, we removed thet feet. All I could think of was dismantling it with and ax and moving the tiny little bits to the nursery and they kid could sleep amongst the splinters covered in a blanket of my hatred for flat pack anything.

So as if building a cot once wasnt bad enough we then had to pull the thing to pieces and put it back together again in the nursery. All this had to happen after the foetus is old enough to have developed ears and be able to hear its father dropping every swear word known to man. My baby hasnt even been born yet and I am already a bad influence! FUCK!

Finally now the cot is sitting in the nusery fully constructed. It is decorated with little flecks of shit paint that are no longer on the walls or the door from when we tried to squeeze it through a doorway an inch too small. It was all a could do not to butter the stupid thing so I could lube it through. At least the baby will know we cared enough to build its cot twice.

Keep Smiling

Jason

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