I Keep Encountering Amateurs

There was a fellow on BBC Radio 4 the other morning who was attempting to assemble a flat-pack bedside table.  This was live on the air, which, as if it needs to be said, is not the most scintillating radio programming. It’s a bit like putting on your favourite song only to find it’s just William Shatner reciting the lyrics.

This esteemed correspondent had been given one hour to complete the project but after forty minutes he’d only just finished the drawer and even then, he suggested, it was in quite a flimsy state.  I felt sorry for the poor man.  Not only for debasing himself live over the national airwaves, but for proving his inability to achieve, what for me is, the most basic task.

At least once a month I’m asked to assemble flat-pack furniture as a part of my daily DIY docket.  Of all the jobs I’m asked to do, this one pleases me the most.  I find it a simpler task than most other projects – it requires no forethought, special equipment or additional materials – and I get paid the same amount of money.

A bit of history.  When I was a young boy with big dreams of future Handyman eminence, I’d spend hours sitting on the floor of my room with a jigsaw puzzle spread out on a giant piece of cardboard.  I recall single-mindedly searching for specific pieces that I knew would fit into the uniquely-shaped spaces on the board.  I was patient, determined and, it seemed, somehow clairvoyant; indeed I could pick up a piece and know immediately, almost instinctively, exactly where that piece would slot in.

To me, flat-pack furniture is little more than a large, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle made simpler by the inclusion of the solution to the puzzle.  I know what you’re thinking:  ‘Really HV, how can you make heads or tails out of those cryptic pictograms disguised as instructions?’  A fair question.  Admittedly some of the visual aids can confuse rather than assist.  But hey, that’s part of the puzzle.

At the risk of sounding like I’m defending the retailers of this furniture – who shall remain nameless (see acronymic blog title) – I’d also like to point out that I believe they have been paying attention to customers who, over the years, have complained of pieces missing from their half-assembled television caddy.  Or who, perhaps, have ended up with a completed wardrobe only to be left with an extra doohicky or thingamajig.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve encountered a missing piece and I’ve assembled hundreds of pieces of furniture.  Good for listening, is all I can say.

Don’t get me wrong, over recent decades they’ve dumbed down furniture like Fox news has dumbed down Americans.

But to said retailers and their reluctance to assemble their own furniture I must sincerely give them my thanks.  Thank you for allowing me to strut my superiority over bumbling, inept media types and, mostly, for helping to keep me employed.

Fluff Off

I met a Furby today.  Or is it Furbee?  I can’t be sure, never having had the pleasure of meeting one face to face before today.  Even as I write, I’ve had to Google ‘Furby’ to see if that was in fact what I’d encountered.  The internet, it must be noted, was no help as to the proper spelling.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, a Furby (Firbie?) is a fluffy blob about the size of a small cantaloupe, with tiny plastic feet to stand on, way-too-big eyes over a way-too-small bird-like mouth and two enormous Spock-ears sticking up at 10 and 2.  Oh, and the little bugger talks.

I’m not entirely comfortable with talking toys.  When my son was smaller he enjoyed the talking Buzz Lightyear action figure (when I was a kid we called them dolls), but thankfully he forgot about it altogether after I hid it from him.

So I was lifting some carpeting in a little girl’s room and had to remove a low shelf in order to get into the corner.  In doing so, I must have activated the Furby’s (Furbeeze?) speaking function because unexpectedly I found myself in conversation with the little fuzzball.

‘Me hungry,’ it said in falsetto.

‘Yah, me too,’ I answered, ignoring its poor grammar.  ‘But I’m almost done here.  I’ll eat when I get home.’  As if it cared.

‘Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.’

‘That’s easy for you to say.’

‘Yay,’ it said apropos of nothing.  And then, ‘Yoo-hoo.’

I ignored it hoping it would get the hint and let me work in peace.  The last thing I need is someone nattering at me when I have tools in my hands.  Then it broke the awkward silence.

‘Uh huh … mmm hmmm,’ like the silly thing was Oprah listening intently to my story about how thieves stole my kidney before surprising me with a new one.

‘What, mmm hmmm?  I didn’t say anything.  If you’re going to say mmm hmmm …’

‘RUDE PHOTO!’

At least that’s what I think it said.  I didn’t like being interrupted by an audacious, talking, furry cantaloupe and, even in the most civil conversations, I certainly don’t appreciate loud eruptions of non-sequiturs.

‘What did you … ?’

‘Car hat day.’  Now it’s resorted to gibberish.

‘Look I’m sure you’re a really nice … thing, but I’ve got work to do so if you wouldn’t mind keeping your very interesting thoughts to yourself, I need to finish up here.

‘Aaah,’ it said almost conciliatorily. ‘Me sleepy.’

At last.

Then my downy friend began to snore – a sound composed of snorts, hums, wheezes, whines and whispers – followed by a steady refrain of ‘Me me me me me me.’  Or perhaps it was getting ready to sing and warming up with ‘Mi mi mi mi mi mi.’

If it had been my son’s toy, I’d have whacked it with my hammer and hurled it out the window to infinity and beyond.

 

Maybe It’s Me

I don’t drink coffee.  Never have.  I just haven’t developed a taste for it, nor do I appreciate the stimulating qualities others claim to reap from it.  To me, coffee is one of the last great mysteries of humankind.

The last time I tried some was in 1992 when I was waiting tables at a hip urban bistro, still young enough to think I might grow into being a coffee fan.  As my colleagues and I arrived for the breakfast shift, they all loaded up on the stuff in order to bolster themselves against the impending throngs.  Peer pressure compelled me to join in with a cup, only to find, twenty minutes later, my trembling hands had impeded my ability to balance a tray full of glasses.  The three nice people sitting at table 21 didn’t appreciate it either as they mopped up the freshly-spilled orange juice from their laps.

Anyway, years later and I’m still working at a local café only this time in my role as Voyeur-of-all-Trades.  I’m their first call whenever the owners need a repair, repaint or renovation.  They sell a lot of coffee while I work.  I can always hear, out of the corner of my ear, order after order of latte, espresso, cappuccino, macchiato, affogato or Americano (isn’t that just regular coffee?).

As people drink their cups of black stuff I notice their transformation.  A look comes over their faces of pure satisfaction, which bewilders me especially after reflecting on the Great Orange Juice Mishap of ’92.  A small surreptitious smile emerges that suggests the coffee has just told them the most astonishing secret.  Their posture is at once relaxed and vigilant as if at any time they might jump up to reveal a red ‘S’ on their chest and fly off to save the world.  And there’s an overall coolness to their manner; an enviable buoyancy.  They may have entered the café trepidaciously, indeed timidly, the thought of ordering their coffee akin to approaching a drug dealer.  But it has summarily disappeared by the time they sit and sip.  If they’d been walking around there would certainly be a swagger.  Suddenly they are all George Clooney.

More than anything I notice what appears to be a sense of entitlement.  They belong and they know it.  They carry an aura of Superman-impersonating, all-grinning, all-swaggering Danny Oceans who’d never drop a tray of drinks let alone even carry one.

As a non-partaker – and not entirely by choice – I often wish I could own that prerogative of the coffee drinker.  I’d like to know what it feels like to walk past a Starbucks and not think to myself, ‘Meh.’  I’d like to have a legitimate reason for taking a coffee break.  I’d like to swagger.

I do believe the beverage can provide genuine pleasure, whether chemically furnished or otherwise.  But I can also recognise a social trend when I see one.  A hundred years ago the effects of absinthe were greatly exaggerated, mainly by the bohemian artisans who wanted to be seen with a glass of the green liquid in front of them. Perhaps black is the new green.