Oct. 5, 2009
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Some assembly required
The Family Guy These are the people roaming around Lowe's who stick their heads inside the fancy-colored washer and dryer sets, pushing the nonsensical buttons and envisioning where they'd look best. Answer – in the garage, 'cause those mothers cost more than a Hyundai. Heck, the paint job alone is worth seven hundred bucks. Seriously, a teal green washing machine? Sure it looks cool, but that's a lotta cabbage just to get drool stains out of a pillowcase. And then there's the Man Mecca known as Best Buy. Every Saturday afternoon – generally around game time – a parade of zombie-like guys in baseball hats and cargo shorts can be found lumbering around with the kind of open-mouthed mixture of awe and terror common to teenage boys who've caught their parents making whoopee on the living room couch. The 60-inch plasma screens, surround-sound speakers, Blu-Ray disc players and Direct TV packages serve as a silent homing beacon meant to separate men from their credit cards. You'd find more common sense in a strip club buffet line. Rich to me has a very simple and practical definition, which isn't to say that I don't entertain some outlandish fantasies about having more money than Scrooge McDuck. For example, I've always wanted a personal hype man, a little dude in a white tuxedo and top hat who carries a portable boom box around that plays the keyboard intro from Europe's “The Final Countdown” every time I walk into the room. And maybe he makes up a dope rap about me while I wait in line at the bank. Anybody know a word that rhymes with bald? Such delusions aside, for me rich means one thing – never having to put my own furniture together. Just the thought of “some assembly required” makes me wanna stick something sharp in my right eyeball and then get punched in the face. There's nothing more infuriating than taking what looks to be a sturdy bathroom shelf, for example, out of the box and having to decipher the instructions, which have no actual words. Instead, there's a diagram apparently drawn by a dyslexic third-grader. That or the instructions are written in Swedish. Swedish? How many Swedes are shopping at the Bed, Bath and Beyond in Columbus, Ga? Should we really make them a focus group for this particular item? The process always follows the same pattern – me cussing up a storm after realized the bottom shelf is on backwards or upside down, or both, and having to start all over again but refusing to give up, only getting angrier and angrier. I'll throw the Allen wrench across the room no less than seven times before trying to bend the thing beyond repair. While idle hands are the devil's plaything, turns out the Allen wrench is Satan's favorite tool. I thought the only thing an Allen wrench was good for was so drunk college kids could steal stop signs. When the work's finally finished, I'll ignore the bag of leftovers parts and put the new piece where it belongs, hoping no one notices the wobbly leg or wonky shelf, or how the drawer doesn't actually close all the way. Some day, Lord willing, the only instructions my furniture will need is me telling the movers where to put it. And that's no hype. Brett Buckner is an award-winning former columnist for the Anniston Star. He lives in Columbus, Ga. with his wife, daughter and stepdaughter. His humor column appears regularly in The Post. Contract Brett at brett.buckner@yahoo.com. |