Some Assembly Required

Today I bought my first vacuum cleaner… ever. It’s funny, I don’t remember growing up ever having to assemble a vacuum cleaner - or anything for that matter. Things were just presented whole.

Amazingly, in my 23 years of life, my list of hand-assembled items is short. And, until my recent move, that list was virtually non existent. Say for instance I needed storage during college - plastic Tupperware bins from Walmart were always favored over investing in Kelsey-built dressers.

I bought my first screwdriver on my return trip to KMart after purchasing my air conditioning unit. They want me to mount it into my window with what? Go figure. Of course, about 75% of the screws that came with the unit lie untouched - still, my room is cold and my air conditioner is snug, jammed in my window.

These little handy-projects continued as I realized I needed to acquire furniture in order to build a comfortable living space. A couch with puzzle pieces that won’t fit through my door. A 63 lb wardrobe closet dragged from Brooklyn - one that now leans about 10 degrees forward after a quick shuffle to the opposite side of my room. And, now, my vacuum cleaner graces the self-assembled, Kelsey-made, malfunctioning equipment in my apartment. Sure, it spits cat little out from behind… all I know is that my floor is about 80% cleaner than before.

I often resist purchasing items that require assembly. Which is why, if you ever visit my apartment, you’ll find little organized piles of my belongings in various huddles on the floor. I have been avoiding purchasing such necessities as a table, chairs, shelving, book shelves, desk equipment, etc. because I simply cannot deal with that many set of instructions in one sitting.

The only memory I have of assembling anything in my childhood is the Christmas I got the three-story Barbie house. More so, I remember my father’s face as he opened the box to about 1,000 pieces. Playing, I never thought back to how all the pieces came together. The kitchen kettle whistled, the elevator ran up and down, and it looked like the house on the picture from the packaging.

But then again, do we ever realize the assembly that goes into the life we play in? I think my main problem with things that need to be assembled is that when I purchase them, I know I will need to build them. It’s like a barrier. A taunt. Whenever I enter IKEA and I see the warehouse of potential furniture, all those boxes say to me is, “Look at what I am… if you’ve got some screws, some tools, 10 hours, and some spare frustration.”

When we’re building our lives - our careers, relationships, wardrobes - there are no instructions. So what if you don’t use some of the screws? You can use a nail instead. I guess that in a world of “some assembly required,” it’s nice to know you can fuck up and still come up with something beautiful. As for my malfunctioning Kelsey-built pieces - if you knew the effort, patience, and conquering of hatred for products that come in pieces that went into the final products - you’d think they were beautiful too.