Structural Engineering
Beyond the few rags I carted over here, and a table, I moved to California with nothing. Sleeping on the floor underlined my need to get some furniture right quick, so I did what any self-respecting bachelor would do in my position: I went to Ikea.
Unfortunately Ikea in an area like this is typically picked clean by others like me. Getting there one is struck by the sheer number of bachelors, wandering around like wildebeests at a watering hole. Young Indian couples wandered around inspecting the wares, and little blonde children with cracker breath and face spattered with .... something ... run around in open defiance of all that is holy.
So I marched through Ikea, a man with a mission, and carefully picked out items that would accentuate the lifestyle that I have chosen for myself. After all, what tells the world I am complete but a pair of matching snürrden end tables that also go with the modular blürgii breakfast nook? I pulled together a few rooms and stuffed the peices into my small car before I put my rear shocks through a stress test. The only thing I couldn't fit into my car was the bed frame which I had delivered a couple of days later.
Half the fun of a peice of Ikea furniture is the putting it together. Now, I may not be the handiest guy out there, but I do have some tools and a reckless demeanor with them that begs the question "how has this guy not lost an eye yet?". But even with such a huge advantage I found myself looking at the disassembled bedframe with some trepidation. For all of you who associate Ikea with cheap particle board and flimsy building materials, you are very incorrect. I was rapidly discovering that what I really needed was a third arm and degree in structural engineering. Before I knew it I was sweating like a middle manager in, well just about any situation, and dropping large peices of lumber on my foot. After the third broken metatarsal, I decided that maybe I wasn't too proud to ask for help. Three hours later and having managed to interrupt my neighbor on the phone three times, the bed was asssembled and I remembered the one thing that hadn't gotten delivered - the mattress.
Now, my apartment looks a lot like the scene in Fight Club where the catalog prices and descriptions pop up over the furniture as he walks through his apartment. Now where can I find an Armalite AR15 air cooled rifle? In corn flower blue.