MUCH ASSEMBLY REQUIRED

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If nothing else, my computer has a nice new home.

That’s one of the few positives I can find after my two-day ordeal of putting together a computer center.

Traditionally, my computer had lived on a table, and it seemed quite happy. However, my wife decided that a table just wasn’t cutting it. Why I don’t know. The table seemed to fill a pretty good niche, which was to keep the computer off of the ground. But apparently it was lacking.

So, we set off in search of a new home for the computer. My first suggestion was to go to one of the -Mart stores and buy one of the particle board ones that costs $69.99 and could be put together in about seven minutes. Granted, this is not the highest quality merchandise, and it would often begin to disintegrate after a few months, but that was OK, because you could simply haul it out to the curb and buy a new one. I’m fairly sure that particle board furniture purchases are a major component of the economy.

That is how I used to buy all of my furniture. If it wasn’t particle board, it wasn’t coming in my house. Then I got married. Particle board, I learned, is a single man’s board. We would only use real boards now. Real, heavy boards.

Finally, we (she) settled on a computer center. Actually, it’s a computer armoire, but I just don’t feel comfortable saying to my buddies, "Yeah, picked out a really nice armoire the other day." It’s difficult to say "armoire" without sounding like Nathan Lane.

The store told us that they could deliver it to us and, if we were willing to fork over a few extra dollars, put it together. Wallowing in my manliness, I told them that would not be necessary. Perhaps I should have been clued in when they begin to cackle uncontrollably.

When they delivered the armoire (I’m comfortable typing the word, just not saying it), I began to realize the task ahead of me. The armoire came in two boxes, both roughly the size of mattresses. When I first tried to move one of the boxes, I came to the realization that these must have been cement mattresses, because they were not budging. Eventually, I ended up cutting open the box and removing the pieces one by one. And one by one. And one by one. After about an hour, I had finally taken all of the pieces out of the box and spread them around my living room. There was wood everywhere -- on the floor, the sofa, the dog. It looked like a pier had exploded and the pieces had landed in my house.

I did the sensible thing, which was go out for fast food. Never start a big project without a wholesome, greasy meal. But, when I returned, it was time to get down to business. I started a methodical approach to the task. Mainly, this meant randomly trying to attach any two pieces of wood in a sort-of jigsaw puzzle fashion. After about an hour of this, I decided that I might want to look at the instructions, lest I construct something that was not only not an armoire, but possibly very dangerous.

The first thing I saw on the instructions was this quote: "Get someone’s help and feel free to take a break or two during the assembly." That right there tells me that they have very little faith in my assembly ability. My guess is they tell you take a break because they have a lot of conversations like this:

CUSTOMER: Yeah, I need to see about getting a replacement shelf.

ARMOIRE PEOPLE: You didn’t take a break, did you?

CUSTOMER: Uh, no.

ARMOIRE PEOPLE: And you got frustrated and took a chainsaw to the shelf as a way to let off some steam, didn’t you?

The instructions were very simple and direct, and even had warnings in big, bold letters all over the place that said things like, "Follow the diagram closely," and "You MUST use the large, gold screws for this step," and "Go get someone who has mechanical skills. You’ll be lucky if you don’t drill a hole in your leg on this step."

After two tiring days of putting the armoire together, I finally had a fully functioning computer center. I also had about 40 percent less skin on my hands, a splitting headache, and some explaining to do to my wife as to where I learned all of those words.

But the bottom line is, I did it. And I did it, so far as I can tell, correctly. And, through it all, I learned some valuable lessons, the main one being, of course, it’s worth a few extra dollars to have someone else do it for you.

E-mail Mike at mwg1234@yahoo.com. No hateful e-mails, please. I get enough of those from my friends.