A couple that assembles furniture together, stays together

No, I'm not mocking prayer. I believe a couple who prays together stays together too, but honestly, in my brief 15 months of marriage and five-year relationship with Pat, I have learned this much: assembling furniture and putting up tents are two of the very most challenging situations for our relationship. I don't blame either of us for this fact, I blame the people in China who build the furniture and I blame the people in America who claim they "tested all the parts" and who write those poor excuses for assembly instructions.

The old adage, "a picture speaks a thousand words" does not hold true with assembly manuals, in my humble opinion. You may think your little picture with screws, arrows and parts are clear and concise, but we strongly disagree!

I should point out, that Pat did the majority of the heavy lifting with this project. I was only called downstairs when the manual said "assistance required," (which ironically were the only words ever printed in the entire manual!). I offered my assistance from the very start but we didn't even make it through page one before I was kindly (actually it wasn't very kindly, now that I think about it) asked to return upstairs until my "assistance was required."

I have to applaud Pat, though, for asking me to go upstairs so he could work through his frustrations with the piece of furniture alone. And to be honest, I was quite happy to accept the offer. I didn't want any part of the project but only offered my assistance to be a "team player" and try to help with what I could see would be a very long project (28 pages to be exact).

Yes, I knew it would be a long project but I don't think either one of us anticipated the assembly of our new TV stand to take two days (and still not quite finished as I'm writing this). But neither one of us anticipated the parts being faulty, the holes not aligning right and new holes needing to be drilled, etc. Some would say that when you pick the cheapest TV stand in the entire store, that this is to be expected. I say buying a TV stand off of Craigslist that is already assembled is looking better and better!

We are making progress though, the Robinson duo that is. The last time we assembled a piece of furniture together, a hammer was thrown - not in my direction (or angrily "dropped" as Pat likes to refer to it). This time nothing was "dropped" and there was no swearing or angry words exchanged (with the exception of a few shrewd remarks - coming from both directions if I'm being honest). Just a tension in the air that you could cut with a knife.

I have to believe that we are not alone in this and that other couples, too, find the process of assembling furniture to be one of extremely high stress and tension. I believe a few things will help us down the road: buying expensive furniture that is delivered to your home already assembled, buying cheap furniture that comes with better instructions and working parts, buying already assembled, used furniture on Craigslist and finally, realizing that a request to leave the room is better than staying in the room and fighting. I am now quite comfortable with the role of being an "assistant as required."

And when this stupid piece of furniture is finally finished, I promise to post a pic. In the meantime, here is what it's supposed to look like: stupid TV stand.

UPDATE: As I was getting ready to hit the "Publish Post" button, I heard Pat yell from the basement and thought he was talking to me. When I yelled down to ask him what he said, he answered "Oh, I was just swearing to myself." I stand corrected about there being no swearing. I also might stand corrected about it being a two-day project as our "bedtime" is quickly approaching and it is still not completed.