Definition of Frustration

With the new year and new year resolutions I am always compelled to purchase new furniture. Already, in 2007, we got a new cooktop and a new kitchen hutch. I always feel a little guilty spending money on furniture. There's this little me inside my head, jumping up and down, waving mini-me arms and shouting YOU DON'T NEED THIS! You have lived FINE WITHOUT IT! But if I always listened to this little me we would still be living at our old place, the kids sleeping in cardboard boxes in the upstairs walk-in closets. Because you might live fine without something, but... define FINE. I could live in a tent with no clean underwear and still be FINE.

A couple of years ago I put up simple hooks in the side entrance - the one everyone uses. I put a bunch of them up high, for grown ups, and a bunch of them down low, for kids. And as far as I was concerned, I had taken care of "where do I hang my coat" forever.

Until the drywall gave on the lower hook rack. It probably had something to do with the kids yanking on their coats. It also probably had something to do with the fact that I screwed the hook racks right into the wall with no anchors, but heck I'm really bad at that kind of stuff.

Now there was still room for grown-up coats, but kid coats got bunched up on the floor with the boots in one of those unruly piles that takes on a life of its own and spreads down the hall towards the kitchen... So I went online and purchased a nice-looking but relatively inexpensive hall tree rack thingy. Hooks up high, a bench down low for gloves and hats and that bike helmet I keep tripping over..... perfect!

There were a few weeks when I wondered if I actually placed the order. Because nothing came. And nothing. And still nothing... and then, Wednesday, I came home to find two huge boxes by the door.

I was so excited! I started putting it together right away, which was a mistake, because it's hard enough to follow the directions without Nick stealing things - like the wood planks you are trying to put together - or Nate crawling all over it. So I set it aside after a few steps. That night I resumed my efforts, but it was still hard going. See, some of the wood was slightly warped, so instead of sliding easily into the pre-formed slots I had to push and pull and bang on it with a wrench. I also didn't have a screwdriver, but instead used a leatherman which, ironically, is stuck with the screwdriver thing poiunted out and I can't get it back in.

Anyway, after three hours I had finally gotten to the point where I had three big parts to fit together... and I noticed that one of the big parts WAS NOT PUT TOGETHER CORRECTLY. Sure, I could have put it together and it would have been functional, but the decoration was incomplete. I mean, it's supposed to have three decorative slats on each side. One side has three, and the other side has one and two holes where the slats are supposed to be.

They are sending me another part to replace it, but it could take up to two weeks. For now I still have a pile of coats in the mudroom. And I also have a half assembled tree rack / bench thingy in my office, and two huge cardboard boxes with the bits I haven't needed yet, and a bowl full of scres and dowels and hex keys and a broken leatherman.