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   You too can experience the thrill of being a Master Craftsman in making
                                  furniture!

I'm not sure when exactly this occurred—I'm guessing late 70s, early 80s—when
some executive somewhere got the bright idea that everybody, at one point in
their lives, maybe multiple times in their lives, wanted to experience what
it's like to make furniture. I'm guessing that through extensive R & D
(Research and Development) it came to light that it wasn't the fussy or
complicated steps like measuring, cutting, drilling or finishing that where
popular, but the actual steps of assembly; the fitting of small wooden
dowels, the driving of screws and twisting of fasteners that people wanted to
experience.

Or perhaps it wasn't the actual experience of assembly that people wanted but
the thought of buying what looked to be expensive furniture at a moderately
expensive price for furniture made almost extensively from pressed particle
board (which does this hideous expansion number on you if it comes anywhere
near water) thinking they're saving money. Lord knows that's probably what my
Mom thought during the mid-80s on her furniture buying spree. It certainly
couldn't have been the thrill of assembly since that thrill was [DELETED-left
to-DELETED] forced on me. Countless shelves, a bed/shelf unit, a desk, and
two dressers were among the items of furniture I “hand made” for Mom.

Thrills-a-minute, let me tell you.

It was more of the same today when I found Spring [1] in the Kids' room in
the midst of wood laminate particle boards, wooden slats, screws, wierd
looking fasteners that you'll never find in any hardware or home self-
improvement store and enough headboards to make what looked like two single
beds. “I'm trying to puzzle this out,” she said. “The only instructions that
came with it were in Chinese.”

“Engrish [2] Chinese?”

“No,” she said. “Chinese. And I'm trying to figure out where everything
goes.”

“There must be at least illustrations, right?”

“Nope.”

“Ah.” Not good at all.

After a brief interlude where I dropped the Kids off at the Charles Dickens
After School Center, Spring and I resumed our forays into the wonderful world
of Furniture Assembly—Bunk Bed Edition!

Rough placement of pieces on the floor. Discussions of what piece goes where
and what possible function it could provide. The puzzlement over some
apparent missing drill holes. And several mis-matched bolts. And non-
illustrated directions in Chinese.

Time passes. We had most of the bunk bed assembled when Spring's cordless
power drill (being used to drive screws) started straining as its battery
slowly died. We were then faced with the prospect of hand driving in some 48
screws to fasten down the slats to support the mattresses. Not looking
forward to that, I borrowed a power drill from one of our neighbors.  Spring
was able to get the Philip's head bit into the drill, but it proved to be too
awkward to use so close to the bed frame. So I took the bit out, and
attempted to put in a bit extention.

Only the drill wouldn't tighten up.

Great! I thought. I broke the neighbor's drill! “XXXX!” I said. “I think I
owe the neighbor a new drill.”

“What's wrong?”

“I can't tighten the drill.”

Spring came over, took the drill and attempted to tighten it. “Yup, looks
like it's broken.” She handed it back to me.

“I'll go return this and inform them I'll be buying them a new drill,” I
said. Spring went to work hand driving the screws in.

Some twenty minutes later I returned. The neighbor took the now non-
tightening drill (it still spun under power but unless you jam a particularly
large bit into it, it won't be of much use) in stride, saying it was very
old, needed replacing anyway and that her parents could get her a new one,
since her father always brought his drill over when he needed to do home
repair at her place.

That was some good news.

But the bad news was having to drive in 48 screws by hand.

[1] http://www.springdew.com/
[2] http://www.engrish.com/

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