Some Assembly Required...

That’s an understatement when it comes to our own personal development. Maybe the OB-GYN should forgo the slap and stamp that on each inverted pink derrière he dangles in the air. It’s also true that there is never an end to the assembly itself. Unless we’re at the very end of the road, at no time do we say: OK, I’m done. We are always a work in progress. We just hope that by the time we get to step #8 that we don’t discover that we overlooked #4 and everything needs to be dissembled and rebuilt.

It’s all very complicated.That’s how psychologists get rich. 

You would think the opposite to be true of the physical stuff, like the assembly of a chair. In my case, an Adirondack chair. Two of them, actually.

Amazon warned me up front: “Some assembly required”. They even offered a service that provides “professional assembly” right in my home. Simply add the additional $125. to my total prior to checkout. Either way, the chairs would be delivered by Tuesday. Cool, I love Amazon!

But I thought that for an extra $125. I should get a catered lunch and a foot massage with my professional assembly. Or maybe have three Swedish bikini girls assemble my chairs on the back patio while I supervise. Carla would only care if she found out what it was costing. But to have a chair put together by some guy just out on a work release program after serving four years for home robbery, wasn’t attractive to me. He would probably look horrible in a bikini and smell of pastrami anyway.

So I put on my big boy pants and convinced myself that it wouldn’t be a problem for me to do it myself. How tough could it be?

For several nights I had bad dreams of the time when the girls were little and I waited until the last minute to put together two bicycles on Christmas Eve. Instructions clearly written in Japanese, illustrations that put step 5 before step 3. A total nightmare. I was fortunate to have my methodical, cool-headed brother-in-law who saved the day while I toasted his genius and wished him a Merry Christmas every 27 minutes.

So when Tuesday rolled around and the two boxes arrived, I unpacked them, accounted for all parts, and was pleased to see the simple instructions in English. German, French, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Hindi, Portuguese, and Bengali. All I needed was English, but thanks for being so international.

Now comes the part where you think I’m going to tell you what a journey to Hell the whole assembly became. That’s not going to happen though, because it wasn’t so bad. It did take me the better part of two mornings to complete one chair, but only because I’m slow and I triple checked every move before making it.

I should also point out that a project like this is best tackled by someone with good eyesight or at least someone wearing glasses that don’t keep slipping off of their head every time they look down, someone with the ability to easily and frequently get down on the ground without a lot of unpleasant sounds and cursing, the ability to kneel on their right knee that has never been torn apart and reconstructed by Joseph Mengele’s great grandchild, and the ability to hold a flashlight between their teeth without drooling so excessively that the entire work area becomes dangerously slippery.

One chair down, one to go. Piece of cake. Turns out I’m something of a master carpenter and a mechanical genius. That’s what I was telling myself for at least five minutes. Then a bit of perspective kicked in. Two lousy chairs, mostly assembled in the factory and all I had to do was to screw major parts together as instructed. It didn’t get any more challenging than the directions to use the CBX screws here and the CBV screws there.

I realize, of course that not only is the whole thing nothing to brag about, it’s surprising that, for a delusional second or two, I would even believe it was . I’m so lame. Now I’ve embarrassed myself with boastful pride over something that was about as difficult as making a club sandwich. I should be ashamed of myself, and I am. It’s like walking out of the AA meeting held in the vacant store in the mall and running into our neighbors across the street, or forgetting that I had a half of a Hershey Bar in my back pocket after it melted from ass heat and put a huge milk chocolate circle on the back of my light khaki pants, while I was at work…showing our model home to clients.

Classy!

Then to really put an end to my ridiculous back patting, I started comparing my accomplishment to those of a few people I know. My friend David built an authentic Boston Whaler with 19th century tools. My new son-in-law, Andrew Grubb, decided that he needed an irrigation system for his back yard, Googled and installed. No problem. Lots of real writers, published, successful. (How dare I ever call myself a writer?). Carol Sveilich posts 127 clever, out-of-the box Facebook posts every day and real books as a real job. You should check out my FB friend, Richard Mitchell. He captures incredibly beautiful pictures of birds, Bald Eagles to Hummingbirds with his camera, as a hobby. He also decided that he needed a barn for goats he planned to acquire, so he built one himself. No kits, no help. Just him. In his spare time only using a butter knife.

Don’t even get me started on Nick Patten. He paints wormholes, portals that take the viewer into other dimensions.

Nick says that it’s not about talent; it’s consistent, hard work. I know that’s the bottom line. Something that I’ve managed to avoid for 50 years.

So what is my take away from all of this? That it’s never too late to dig in and turn things around? That even very average 69-year-old people can still do great things?

Not really. I’ve learned not to compare myself to others and to take pride in my ability to be right here in my new patio chair and derive immense gratification at how very far I’m able to spit watermelon seeds out into the lawn.

Damn I’m good!

Now I can sit here and enjoy my little world, with no additional assembly required. Well, maybe throw a shot and a few ice cubes into this drink, but other than that, my world is complete...at least for the next few minutes anyway.