The IKEA Pax Wardrobe in all its glory
So, we assembled the PAX wardrobe and the DICKTAD crib last weekend. My brother and I have the broken fingers to prove it.
I prepared for this role by going to the food coop Saturday morning. My shift co-worker is, ah, ahem, easy on the eyes. She gets a lot of support from the coop staff, who come by to see if she, not we, needs anything.
Coop shift leader to my co-worker: Could you carry this sprig of dill to the produce aisle?
However, I’m big, fat, and tend to wear a baseball cap backwards in frat boy fashion to hide the fact that I haven’t washed my hair before sorting broken and rotten eggs (yes, that’s my coop job!) My easy-on-the-eyes partner gets people checking in on her regularly, but me, I'm manual labor. I have this kind of conversation with my shift supervisor:
Coop shift leader to Jason: Could you carry these 60 bags of 50-pound bundles of carrots to the cooler downstairs?
So to warm up for building IKEA furniture I moved heavy boxes for two hours and sorted broken and raw eggs for 45 minutes, just so I would feel and smell wonderful during construction.
We accomplished this construction yesterday in a marathon 10-hour assembly line. The roles were Ryan, master lifter; Jason, master complainer; and Terry, master engineer. The assembly went something like this:
Terry: I have the plans. Take the top and flip it over and drive three screws into it and count to ten and then hammer the peg into the top hole.
Jason: (whining) Let me see the plans.
Terry: In a moment, when I'm done.
Ryan: …
Jason: (annoying tone) Please let me see the plans.
Terry: No. I’m looking at them right now. Hammer the peg into the hole.
Ryan: … ...
And so on until we built the room you see here. (Before you say, “Wow! You have a lot of media in your nursery!!” Terry is a video editor and I am a multimedia teacher.)
The DICKTAD crib (what a name!) was the worst, because we were tired and IKEA engineers devised the cruelest torture device ever. Slats are affixed to the base of the crib with plastic nails that you hammer with a dowel because the nails are recessed to allow the mattress to slide in. Really this is fun for the Swedish as they imagine all the hapless IKEA crib customers that will bang the hell out of their thumbs and fingers as they drive these plastic nails in. So that part of the day went like this:
Ryan: (Drives plastic nail into slat and crib base) I think I’ve got it.
Terry: Can I help?
Ryan: (Drives plastic nail into slat and crib base) No, I’ve got it. (Hammers thumb) Ow! Fuck!!
Terry: Can I help?
Jason: I’ll do this side. (Hammers index finger) Goddamn it!
Terry: Can I help?
Ryan: (Hammers thumb) Ow! Shit!!
Terry: Can I help?
Jason: (Hammers thumb) Mutherfuckin’ IKEA!!
Terry: Are you okay?
We did this 14 times each, with only a brief interruption when Terry realized there were 14 slats in real life, and only 12 in the crappy IKEA illustration, so she pointed out that we were going to run out of parts before we ran out of IKEA instructions. So we had to have a part count.
The damned slats of the IKEA Dicktad Crib
Once we got the 14 slats hammered into the 28 holes with only four broken thumbs, we then had to stand the crib on end to insert the crib base into the crib frame. That part of the conversation went like this:
Terry: (Simultaneously with Ryan) Stand it on end!!
Ryan: (Simultaneously with Terry) Stand it on its side!!!
Jason: …
Terry: (Simultaneously with Ryan) Stand it on end!!
Ryan: (Simultaneously with Terry) Stand it on its side!!!
Jason: ... ... ...
The ottoman/raft. It’s almost the same size as the crib
Nevertheless we were able to successfully construct the crib, the PAX wardrobe, two more media BENNO shelves and a giant red raft in case Brooklyn ever floods (we’ll use it in its designed purpose as an ottoman until the day of reckoning.)
Afterwards we all dealt with our IKEA recovery in different ways. Terry reorganized our entire CD/DVD collection and then loaded up the PAX wardrobe with clothes, labeling each location on the shelf so we could always return the clothes to the proper location.
Ryan and I met some friends and saw a movie and got blind stinking drunk. I got home at 7 AM the next day.
We'll buy stuff like a crib mattress later, I guess.