It's not that I'm lazy; it's that I don't have any talent for these things. I am just the type of girl who has to ask other people to do the grunt work for her. When I moved to Maine, the Boy From Work assembled every piece of furniture I bought while I stuck to tasks I was better at: drinking a giant jug of wine and sweeping up after him. When I had to change my New York license plates over to Maine plates, I selected one of my dearest students--an auto boy who had a toolbox in the back of his truck--and smiled so sweetly that he bustled sans coat into the freezing winter air and changed my plates while I told funny jokes and bounced from foot to foot to keep warm. If those boys hadn't helped me with those projects--or, to be more precise, if they hadn't done those projects for me--the result would've been crooked bookcases and Maine plates that had to be super-glued over New York plates. (Okay, to be fair, I have changed plates all on my own before, but that was when I had the proper tools at my disposal, and here in Maine I own two screwdrivers, which wouldn't have done anything to remove the bolts that anchored my plates to the car. Needles to say, I was very uninterested in going out and buying the proper socket wrench.)
For these and other reasons, I was nervous last weekend when I placed an order for new nightstands. They would arrive on my doorstep in boxes, with screws and--no doubt--a complicated set of directions written in a way that wouldn't pass in my technical writing class. I was concerned. I was so concerned I even considered delaying the purchase for a few more weeks, until I was certain the Boy From Work, who is visiting for Valentine's Day, would be around to be handy with the screwdriver while I sat on the bed with a mojito.
But these nightstands are way overdue. Since I moved in I have been balancing my remotes, books, water, and lamp on a cardboard box. This is neither "elegant" nor "sophisticated,"--adjectives I'm striving for in the decor of my bedroom--so I decided it was time to suck it up, place the order, and get handy.
The nightstands arrived this morning. It was night before I finally got around to them, and so I turned on TLC for moral support. I figured that my raging crush on Clinton could do me some good. I was counting on there being some rough moments in the assembly process, but I guessed that I could be soothed by a gay man talking about the beauty of wide leg trousers and the horror of pleats.
After selecting background noise for the assembly, I prepared myself. This meant pouring myself a glass of wine and putting on slippers. I got out the small red toolbox my father prepared for me before I moved to Maine.
The small red toolbox contains the only tools I own: the screwdrivers, a few measuring tapes, and assorted packs of tacks, nails, screws, and bolts. It turned out the only tool I would need during the process was a screwdriver, so I lucked out. I also lucked out because the nightstand was easy to put together. I extended the assembly process over two episodes of What Not to Wear, but that was because I actually stopped assembling during the really compelling parts of the program--you know, when the schlumpy-dressed victim has a breakthrough and realizes, hey, it's important to have a wardrobe that consists of more than a rainbow of stretch pants and Cosby sweaters. If I hadn't been that invested in the program, I could've had both the nightstands together in thirty minutes.
Needless to say, I felt pretty badass. I was pretty proud of myself. And I celebrated the only way a girl who is that badass and proud should: by eating a bowl of cookies-n-cream ice cream and reflecting on how nice it will be to not have to stack her bedside books on a cardboard box anymore.
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