The Flat Pack Proposal

We brought a new set of shelves recently from Argos - flat pack.

Now generally I can handle flat pack kits, even enjoy them, providing they are from Ikea and require no hammering. Hammers scare me, kind of like gym instructors. They are both useful in their own way, but loud, and with the potential to cause me pain.

Ikea's flat pack kits however require no hammering and are idiot friendly. They contain the fewest number of parts possible, are part-assembled in the box, and come with clear diagrammatic instructions. In short, they resemble a 5 piece jigsaw puzzle sold for 2 year olds.

Argos' kits on the other hand, are the equivalent of a 5000 piece puzzle designed for former Krypton factor masters. The instructions were in French, the diagrams smeared and there was more wood than a German blue movie

I'm not sure how much time it took us to assemble it. I needed a shave afterwards, but then I always need a shave being directly descended from a silver back gorilla. I was later told that whilst we were screwing it together an entire species of hippo was discovered and immediately made extinct in a remote district of Africa.

The screws wouldn't screw, the wood wouldn't fit, and the screwdriver wouldn't stay where I put it. There was, of course, a screw missing, (story of my life) but luckily there was a piece of wood missing as well (again, story of my life) so that balanced out.

Finally, after what I assume was decades of toil we screwed the last screw and, in a moment of history par only to building the pyramids, raised it upright.

It was beautiful, the veneer shining on the front, each shelf lining up with the others and one side screwed on upside down.

The whole thing was tilted, the shelves running at an angle to the floor, siding things off and smashing them on the ground below. Art Deco perhaps but not entirely practical. We pulled it apart and pushed it back together the right way, missing two solar eclipses in the process, but the screws had been pushed out of line and the wood chipped; it wasn't the thing of beauty it was meant to be.

And now it stands in our front room, a dream gone wrong; a useful monstrosity - deformed, off-centre and ever so slightly bent.

Story of my life.