Dagnabbit!

Friday I was helping my daughter set up her home office space, which required us to build a fairly large desk that came compactly packaged in two boxes that were deceivingly heavier than they looked, and equally complicated to assemble. The instruction booklet lacked words, instead each step was marked by number and accompanied by a picture. Ancient pictographs were decidedly more detailed!

Turns out I do better with a combination of written instructions and pictures of what it’s suppose to look like. So, in this case, Mariah “read” the instructions, and my job was to hand her the proper piece of wood, if you can call particle board “wood”, along with the appropriate screws, followed by my expert opinion, “I don’t think it goes that way.”

One particular combination was giving us trouble. Mariah needed a better angle at which to see in order to solve the problem. I chose to hold the piece of wood on my head. That height was perfectly in her line of sight, but probably not my brightest idea of the day. The problem arose when she decided she needed to adjust the wooden peg with a hammer! Before I realized what she was doing she tapped that peg, and without warning I had a headache! “Whoops! That was a bad idea. Sorry!” You think!?

I asked Mariah what step we were on? “Three”, she said. “How many steps are there?” “Looks like 18.” Heavy sigh. This was taking forever! I looked around the room as she figured out what goes where and how, when I spied another sleeve of screws and fasteners. “No, no Mariah. There are 27 steps!” and us on step 3. I settled in. It’s going to be awhile.

We’d been at it for hours. I had lost track of how many. It seemed like days. Mariah resolutely continued onward, when I pointed out that she failed to place the bottom of the drawer in position before attaching the sides. “Dagnabbit!” I burst out laughing! “What, you’ve never heard that word before?” Sure I have. When I was eight! I don’t think I’ve heard that word in 50 years. When compared to any other colorful sentiment of frustration, it bore the need to vent irritation with the refreshing power of laughter. As an alternative curse word it was so much more satisfying than those of the four letter variety for both of us.

We celebrated Step 27. We finished! It’s a fine-looking desk and will serve her well. I placed those pictorial directions in the bottom drawer, and hope to the stars and back that I never see them again!