Hayter
article for January 19, 2020
“Too
Much Desk”
There is a big box leaning against the
wall in the garage. “Big deal”, you say. Yes, it is. It’s a big and heavy deal.
And I’m the one who has to deal with it.
You know how people are always
exaggerating about the weight of something.
Especially their own weight. An acquaintance recently told me she wore a
size two. While I don’t really understand women’s sizes, I do have a fairly
good grasp of the law of probabilities. If she wore a size two it was back when
she was in the second grade.
For whatever reason, clothing size,
gas mileage, one’s infrequency of television viewing, and the weight of an
object you’re trying to pick up, each will be exaggerated. I told you that just
to prep you for what I’m getting ready to say. That box in my garage weighs a ton.
That is no exaggeration. You can ask the kid who helped me load it.
Tomorrow, the box will be hauled
into Kay’s workroom. I have a study. Kay has a workroom. She uses her room to
make jewelry, knick-knacks, and artistic stuff. My special room is called a
study because it’s where I read, write, and study stuff. Fortunately, one does not need a lot of
workspace in which to read and write. Talented people like Kay need places to
store stuff as well as flat, well-lit, open areas so they can best do what they
do.
The problem we have here is
carefully spelled out in the pact that Kay and I signed. I’d show it to you,
but it’s in one of the 18 boxes that are crammed into my closet over yonder. The
pact is called The Kay and Mark Household Item Accord. I would’ve put my name
first, but Kay raised such a stink.
The accord is a bit wordy, but it
boils down to this: Before any non-edible and non-disposable item enters this
house, an item of similar size and weight must be removed from said domicile.--
Tomorrow, we will remove from Kay’s workroom one desk, one table, and three
shelving units. As soon as that is squared away, we will bring from the garage
a one-ton L-shaped desk unit. I refer to it as a “unit” because “desk” doesn’t
reflect the magnitude.
I have every confidence that the
assembling instructions will be every bit as clear as the synopsis for the
series “The Witcher.” The legs to the apparatus are apparently made of steel
and lead forged in Smolensk. The flat surfaces of the unit are made of sawdust,
blended with glue, and mashed together to form the heaviest board-like material
on the planet. If you have to remove a screw in the board, you had better not
have to replace it, because glued wood will not accept a screw replacement.
It’s one of those Isaac Newton principles.
You can readily see why I am not
looking forward to tomorrow. The only good thing happening is I get to play
racquetball with Brad in the morning. The good thing about that is I’ll come
home sweaty and worn out but won’t have to take a shower, because I’ll get even
more tired and sweaty trying to assemble the Russian forged desk unit.
I would ask Brad to give me a hand
with the job, but he’ll expect me to help him with one of his projects. Brad
does a lot of superfluous building of stuff. He constructed an outdoor shower. I
imagine he did that because, uh… I don’t
really know why he did that. I do have an idea of why he felt the need to
construct four monstrous Adirondack chairs. I think it’s because he likes to
sit on slanted wood after showering. He
built his Adirondacks out of two by fours. Each one weighs almost as much as
the box in my garage. At the moment, they’re each located at the exact same
place they were located immediately after construction.
So, while Brad would be pleased as
punch to help me out, I can’t afford his generosity. I can’t run the risk of
him asking me to help him relocate his lawnchairs. I could ask Big Al to come
over and help me with the desk assembly, but he’d end up attaching me to one of
the desk legs.
I could ask Larry and Dennis to come up from
Pasadena to help me, but I’d have to feed them, and they’re not going to settle
for hotdogs.
No, it will just be Kay and me on the
desk project, and I assure you it will be a slow-go. Kay won’t let me assemble
anything of hers without looking at the instructions. It doesn’t matter how
obvious it is that “Bracket C” attaches to the underside of the desktop at the
corner labeled NZ12, I have to verify it with the instructions. -- The instructions
to provide one worthwhile warning. -- “NOTE: If you attach the wrong bracket to
NZ12, do not remove the screw keeping the bracket in place. Instead, make the
same mistake with Bracket D, and you may eliminate some of the tilt.”
I don’t have a good feeling about
this. Which is a good thing, because there’s no way I can be disappointed in
the results. That attitude has managed to serve me well over the years.
end
hayter.mark@gmail.com
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