“assembly instruction” – mishaps in construction

I recently acquired a new storage cupboard-y thing from Staples — one of those that you have to put together yourself. Everything started out fine.

This is the first instruction:

1. Insert wood dowels (F) into the pre-drilled holes on both ends of side panels (B) and attach side panels (B) to bottom panel (C). Insert wood screws (G) in to the bottom panel (C) to connect it to the side panels (B). Make sure it is tightened securely.

Along with the handy diagram, that was fairly simple for me to handle. Unfortunately, as I progressed, the directions began to remind me of one of those alien intelligence tests like in Stargate or Babylon 5. Like, they started off easy (“can you read letters A, B, and C”), and then got increasingly, worryingly, more difficult (“next, perform magic”).

One of the final instructions says simply:

Install the door handle.

Really? That’s it? HOW? The diagram fails to identify any kind of hardware that should be used for this process, and by that point I didn’t even *have* four matching screws (I ended up using 3 that I *think* were right, and 1 that will probably be fine as long as it doesn’t get pulled on too hard.)

And just in case anyone was feeling too complacent by the time they finished the main steps, the instructions include this caveat:

Remarks: once the caps (H) have been placed in the holes on the panels (A&C), you had better keep it unmovable, or it will ruin the wood around it easily.

Wait, what?

(As I commented during the construction process, it’s a good thing I wasn’t building a car. Or a house. Or anything that would be a problem if it suddenly and unexpectedly collapsed.)

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.