Hammer. Screwdriver. $%^@*!!!

[mrissa]

Ahhh, nothing like completing one-fifth of a necessary task to make a body feel virtuous.

If you are determined to maintain the illusion that I am a sweet and good-tempered person, committed to the well-being of all living things, possibly you should skip the rest of this post. Because I have been putting together a bookshelf.

Here's the thing: the official category of these bookshelves is "cheapass." I know this. We could theoretically afford gorgeous built-in bookshelves, but we would rather buy the cheap ones and use the remaining funds to, say, visit friends and relations, buy books, eat well, etc. So. These bookcases are not high-quality, and we knew that going in. They are wooden in the same sense that Velveeta is cheese, which is to say, not at all, but sort of inspired by the same general idea.

But here is what has changed in the three and a half years since we moved here: the cheapass bookshelf manufacturers have started placing a high priority on allowing people to build things without using a hammer or a screwdriver.

Here's my suggestion for people who want to build things without using a hammer or a screwdriver: go buy one of each. Seriously, people. It's not like a hammer and a pair of screwdrivers is going to set you back all that much -- you don't even need the really high-quality ergonomic grip whatsits. What you need is metal shaped to bang on things and metal shaped to make fiddly little things go round and round. That's it. Not hard. I would venture to say that most non-disabled adults will actually find uses for such things again, if they buy them.

But no, we couldn't make people buy a hammer and a screwdriver just because they want to build a bookshelf. How elitist that would be!* So instead they include all sorts of snap-in plastic parts that not only do not require a hammer and a screwdriver but in fact would be actively unsafe to use with them. Great.

But let's circle back to the central fact about these bookshelves: they are cheapass. What this means is that the quality-control for part alignment is not very good. In the old kind, this was not so much a problem: they told you to tack the cardboard backing on the back of the bookshelf with nails, and they even gave you little suggested marks on the back of the cardboard in case you were too damn dumb to figure out where to put nails. But if it didn't line up exactly with the bookshelf, you could put the nails in slightly different spots and correct for the problem. With little snap-in plastic things that have to go through the holes in the cardboard to the holes in the particle-board, a misalignment of a quarter of an inch on one side of the backing means some serious difficulty getting the little things to snap in. But some genius has decided this is better, because then nobody has to own a hammer, unless they want to do anything else around the house at all ever.

So this was a learning experience. Specifically, I learned that writing stories from Carter Hall's perspective gives me a foul-mouthed hockey player lurking under the surface, ready to help with household chores at a moment's notice. Also I learned how many uncomplimentary compound nouns I can construct using suffixes like -head and -nut and -cheese and even, when I was thinking in a much older voice than Carter Hall's, -britches. (Answer: lots.)

One down. Four to go. Three of them are of a different brand, so I may have a whole different set of gripes at that point. Lucky you.

*Hi, my name is mrissa, and I'll be your columbina for the afternoon....

Comments

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

We're happy with our "cheapass but still requires tools" variety of IKEA bookcase. It is called the Billy.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's what I've got three of, for in markgritter's office. It may be less harrying than the other kind? That'd be nice....

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Being as they're two feet taller than I am, Husbandman does the assembly, but it takes him not very long and he's not crabby about it. We have one of another brand from Office Depot and he was quite vexed while assembling it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I looked at my to-do list for the week and decided that it would be a better use of my time and energy to do other house things and let markgritter put those together on Wednesday morning. Maybe it would have been just fine, but it's equally possible that I would have pulled something and not ended up with built bookcases anyway and screwed myself up for the million and one other things in need of doing. So.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

A blogger I check in with on a semi-frequent basis uses "assbeagle" and "assweasel" to good effect.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But I like beagles.

Also, while I am not a fan of stoats, they don't seem to work very well in most compound noun-style insults. Calling someone a "crapstoat," for example, just is not likely to catch on.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

"Weasel" is just a great word. Useful in so many diverse contexts!

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

We're fond of "Assgoblin" in my circle.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The consonants in that one do all the right things.

I have an entry on fictional/speculative swearing percolating in my head. It'll probably come out at a vastly inconvenient time.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

I feel so virtuous (and elitist!). We're going with built-in bookshelves. Except we get them for free, because Don's dad is a master carpenter. So, you know. Accident of birth, wot wot. Lucky us.

Then again, heaven only knows when we'll actually get the bookshelves. Must have floors for them to rest upon first. I definitely fall prey to that thing where you get so caught up in imagining how lovely and fabulous your [insert project] will be that you just sort of neglect to ever actually work on it.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. We do that, too. We are so good at visualizing our lovely bamboo floors and stairs that we can ignore the cheap and deteriorating carpet that is what we actually have!

I guess it is cheaper this way...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do think floors are essential to really first-rate bookshelves, yes.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

Although, if I was feeling really creative, I could just install horizontal bookshelves in between the joists, with meandering little pathways installed between them, like some sort of book garden.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

It boggles my mind that anyone would try to design things to be built and use neither a hammer nor a screwdriver. Personally, I'd add a drill to the list. I cannot envision life with none of these.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And yet it's a thriving industry. Go figure. I think it's like the "convenience food" that isn't -- the sandwich version of Lunchables, crap like that.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Ironically, while you were cussing at a bookshelf (I agree with you, by the by, which is why IKEA stuff is now the only flat-pack furniture I will buy), I was writing about building furniture the hard way. I don't suggest it as an alternative to reduce the general profanity level.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And you spent a great deal longer on your (admittedly far superior) furniture than I did on mine, and right now that's not time I had available. So.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. I am doing the same task - bookshelf-building - from the opposite direction: these are professional steel library shelves, but they have been built before. Like, thirty or forty years ago. And they were taken apart by unloving hands, so I have to do heavy hammer-work on some of them just to get them back to an approximate shape, such as the holes will then match up enough to get the bolts through...

And thus far I have built three stand-alone units, seven and a half feet tall and three feet wide; and tomorrow I start figuring out how to tackle the four-of-these-linked-together that I need to construct along the back wall here. I'm going to be on my own, handling twelve x seven = eighty-four square feet of steel shelving-unit. Eek.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If you disappear, we'll know to send in the St. Bernards who can work the Jaws Of Life.

[grndexter.livejournal.com]

Do you own or rent?

We own. We are "remodeling". (ie rebuilding the entire house from the basement up and the outside wall framing in.)We are going to throw our custom made maple bookcases in the basement, and make little shelves that will go between the wall studs for the books. (Leave sheet rock on one side of the wall, have books between the wall studs.) This move "expands" the floor area in the LR by about 60 sq feet. (due to the footprint removal of the "custom made" bookshelves.)

We are also recessing little box shelves in the bathroom we're doing now, and creating a false wall between two bathrooms for cabinets that will be flush with the surface of the bathroom walls. Saving tons of space, and creating new storage space at the same time.

Oh... did I mention the "custom made maple book cases - were custom made for our LAST house?

But if you rent... {sigh}.