Shouts From Down Under

As a last resort, read the instructions? A giant NOPE...

Rules are made to be broken, they say. Well, that's all very well and good, but some things in life are already outside the rules before you even start.

Flat pack assembly instructions, I would speculate, are designed by that little man overseas somewhere, who doesn't CARE. We should all care for folks, whether we know 'em good, or they are just an anonymous persona somewhere on the Earth who we will never meet, get to know, and hence consider them more than a stranger, or even less, merely another human.

Humans have less value in some sectors, than IKEA A4 pages of instructions to screw together that cheapskate kitchen cabinet or cube module for your daughter's bedroom.



Some instructions are like a building that you enter, and realise that the exit doorway has disappeared forever. Yes, you are trapped forever in sweaty forehead frustration, exasperated picking up and putting down of items 2,2,2 and 2, and also dowel M8 x 40, or M8 x 25 that it says fit in the edges of item #5.



A salesperson led you into the darkness and foggy destiny, showing you the way with their candle of illuminating buy-pitch, but then betraying you the moment you arrive home, and feel guiltily obliged to put the stupid furniture together. You can check in, and pay by cheque. But you can't check out the finished product by any shuffle or rotation of the itemised instruction sheet.

WHATEVER

Imagine instructing someone how to do the crazy stuff Rhett & Link devise, for their YouTube show - Good Mythical Morning



You feel as impressed as our cat Romeow, when a new kitten (Frankenstein- Frankie) challenges him to his rightful place in the household. He's receiving a taste of how he treated our previous cat, Gypsy, who basically passed away from stress and exhaustion. (For once I'm serious)



I was trapped in a paper hotel of strange rules, undecipherable indicators, puzzling numbers, oddball sketching perspective and perhaps a cultural clash or three. Is it just me, or does everyone have this thing with instructions, and also cords, string, garden hoses, automotive electrical cable, fencing wire and any other elongated material that tangles beyond sanity with one glance. (From me)



Then it's like when you finish that major engine or drive train repair on your car, only to find a couple of odd, different sized bolts and screws left over, that no amount of thinking and remembering gives one clue to where they went.
There is an added challenge with DIY IKEA or K-MART style chipboard home products. They can sometimes have a couple of "spares". So, even if you examine the @#$%@#$ thing microscopically, you'll never find where it went. No pre drilled hole, no indentation, no number, no label, no asterisk referring you to a small extra note at the bottom of the instruction sheet.

I'm sure this is an overlooked genre. It HAS to be.

The specialised authors of Assembly Instructions. They sit for hours, nutting out the most tortuous way of explanation, the most ridiculously weird method of something that *gritted teeth* and *bulging eyeballs* should be so simple.

Imagine the leftover pallet load of bolts and bits forgotten during assembly of a heavy mining vehicle.



Sparky