One aspect of life that has always amazed me is how a husband can find himself
In a situation that he would prefer not to be in – despite hid best of intentions. As I am certain most of you are aware, Mother’s Day was not long ago. The Blonde in the house hinted that if flowers were to be forthcoming that she would like some orchid plants to replace some that were lost when we moved. That seemed like a good solution to me especially since we learned that a neighbor was one of the great experts to be found on orchids within lord knows how many miles. He then offered to take us to a farm that had enough orchids to please any lover of said flower.
On the appointed day, we drove through the wilds of DeLand to said farm – which is just past a really nice red barn. (The barn has nothing to do with the orchids, but it is a heck of a nice barn). We went up a dirt road to the farm. The road had signs on it saying “watch out for turtles crossing”. Danged if there wasn’t a big turtle crossing on our way back. He was really not all that concerned about us, but that is not the issue here. The orchid farm is the issue, and our neighbor spoke truthfully about the orchids. Truly, there was a plethora of orchids of all sizes and colors. After due diligence, we left the farm with some very attractive orchids.
When we got back, it was determined that I needed to get a card table out of storage so the orchids could be placed on the enclosed porch. Being a husband of many years, I was pretty certain what would occur next. Yep, the Blonde immediately realized that you couldn’t have orchids sitting on a beat-up card table on a nice porch. Obviously, what we needed was a nicely designed plant table. It was not long before an exceedingly appropriate one was found and ordered. This led to what is known to many husbands as the “good intentions backlash.” My good wife believes that I am a gifted assembler despite many examples which place me in a completely different category.
I was informed that it would be an easy assembly as no tools were required, and it could be put together in ten minutes. The package arrived quickly which is one of the problems in living within three miles of the Big Company’s dispensing site. I then used more than the ten allotted installation minutes just to get the box open. Once it was opened in a cloud of fiber board, I found the instructions which indicated that you did not have to use your tools. That was definitely true as you had to use their tools. Their tools were one of those little tiny allen wrenches that you stick in the end of a screw which has no pointy end. I used to have a bunch of those wrenches which also had screwdrivers that could fit in the end of the non-pointy screw. Really sped up the work and some folks might have been able to do the work in ten minutes with them. However, I am retired so I gave all my good tools to our youngest son who lives in North Carolina.
As soon as I get a chance, I am going to petition a Federal Agency (not certain which one, but perhaps all of them) to mandate that if a vendor states that something can be assembled in a certain time that they should be required to specify three different times. One time for people up to a certain age, a second one for folks over that age and a third one for retired folks who gave away their tools. That would correct many grievous problems and make life better for all.
I will not burden you with the actual assembly except to say that it did take more than ten minutes. Part of the reason being the directions were four drawings using a type size smaller than that on a prescription bottle. I did start out with a problem since the table had three shelves. Two of them were the same size. I had one all installed but then realized that the other one was to go in that spot. My magnifying glass led me to a small illustration that showed that one of them had two holes on one side. This resulted in another use of more than ten minutes to make the change.
I guess you get the idea. That is, a husband should always carefully check his good intentions!
Barry Evans is a columnist for Villages-News.com.
