Alaina Mabaso's Blog

1. Contemplate the fact that this box in the corner of your freshly rented place has a bed-frame inside of it, in a way you really could not be fully aware of when you chose it in the IKEA showroom.

   

2.  Open the box without severing any capillaries.

   

3. Look at the cover of the instruction booklet and realize this will not be too complicated.

   

4. Consider illustration advising you not to construct this furniture alone. Begin your attempt anyway. In light of the fact that divorce means you may be eternally without an in-house helper for furniture assembly, re-affirm your conviction that no-one gets a divorce unless it is absolutely necessary; consider also your new realization that anyone who says “divorce is the easy way out” should be confined to a room and forced to assemble IKEA furniture alone for the rest of his or her days.

   

5. Flip through the language-free assembly handbook and experience a rising sense of panic.

   

   

6. Handle the bag of hardware that came with the boards that are apparently a bed-frame, and reflect deeply on whether to admit defeat, or if it is too late now to go back.

   

7. Successfully insert the first screw. Realize that this is all within your grasp, physically and mentally.

   

8. First definitely audible expletive.

   

9. IKEA reprieve: the free space of IKEA; pass go and collect $200. Insert wooden pegs. The ease of this soothes you and builds your confidence. You can achieve this.

   

10. OMG I can see how these pieces connect and become a bed. This is going to be done in no time.

    

11. Abject failure. There is no way you can attach the side-boards to the headboard. Pile all pieces in the corner. This whole project was ridiculous. Realize you are a failure not just at furniture assembly but at life in general. People all over the world are doing this and living in sleek little inexpensive Swedish modular homes and you can’t build a fucking bed-frame. Asking for help via social media makes things worse as so-called friends liken it to LEGOs, counsel you to “take your time,” “Think of it like a puzzle and limit your focus to just one step at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed,” and opine that “if a cracked-out heroin addict can do it, I’m sure you can manage.”

    All of this only confirms the conviction that you are a fiasco of a human being.

    

    I mean, what the everliving HELL do these signify? Two black arrows pointing the right. A white and a black arrow  pointing toward each other. It might be easier to just write some new software for the Kepler Spacecraft. You might not feel so isolated and ashamed.

    12) Rescue! Your new roommate is handier than you are (everyone is handier than you are) and suddenly this diagram makes complete sense, and the bed is quickly assembled through the articulation of various boards, brackets, and screws.

    

13) You realize you have probably missed your calling as a structural engineer/interior designer. You can do anything.

14) Grasp the next box with fresh enthusiasm.

15) Reflect, with a familiar creeping sense of doom, on the extraordinary fact that this is supposed to be a filing cabinet.

16) Oh FUCK no.

17) Position an unopened IKEA furniture box beside your bed. This works as a bedside table.

18) Decide you will hire someone, at any cost, to complete your IKEA assembly, because you are a piece of incompetent
baggage amongst the rest of the industrialized, tool-savvy human race.

19) Eat Cheez-Its with a glass of cheap red wine and find solace in blogging.

By the way, all you poor slobs who buy a foam mattress from IKEA: nobody mentions it until it arrives, but here are the instructions. (Hope you have plans in case your “5pm-9pm” furniture delivery is an hour late.)

What are your IKEA tips?