A Simple Life

          Some years back, an Australian Prime Minister was quoted as saying, ‘Life wasn’t meant to be easy.’  Okay, perhaps that’s true, but surely it is meant to be simple isn’t it?  I mean, isn’t that why Fred Flinstone invented the wheel? 

          But these days it seems that everything around us has been created to make life more difficult.  Well, at least that’s the way it appears to me.

I’m the first person to admit that I am not handy…not with any electrical stuff nor with things that a ‘handy’ person, be they male or female can deal with and do it with a smile.  I even admit to not knowing what certain tools are called.  But, as long as it does the job, does it really matter if I call an electric drill a ‘buzzy thing’ or masking tape as ‘sticky stuff?’  Not to me.  But, judging by the smirks and giggles at the local building supply store, my lack of hardware jargon is a great source of amusement to its employees.

          So it should be no surprise that I try, as much as possible, to avoid doing anything to or at my home that requires me to use a hammer, nails, buzzy things or even sprays.  My life is simple.  If it breaks, throw it out.  I probably didn’t need it anyway.

          Still, there are some things that are necessary even for a simple life…a small sideboard for the dining room being a good example.  I mean I had to have some place to put all my plates, cups, saucers and wine glasses, didn’t I?

          I had purchased the sideboard from a well known, local furniture store and eagerly awaited its delivery.  I was stunned therefore, to receive a rather large box full of wood panels, plastic baggies bursting with screws and a three page work sheet.  Apparently, for a rather hefty $ outlay, instead of a lovely sideboard, I had bought a box of kindling!  A call to the store produced little joy.  I was informed that if I’d wanted to actually have a sideboard delivered, I should have paid the additional charge to have the item ‘put together’ for me.   It seems that furniture stores these days don’t actually sell furniture, they sell cut up trees.  Who knew?

          However, necessity being the mother…and all that, I figured surely I could put the thing together by myself.  After all, how hard could it be?  Men do this sort of thing for a living don’t they?

          Well, the first instruction showed me just how hard it could be. 

          ‘Taking your Phillips head screw driver….,’ it said.

          I didn’t even know screwdrivers had heads, let alone heads with specific names.  And it’s not like screwdrivers have their names written on their sides for easy identification either.  Just try to figure out that instruction if you don’t know the difference between a screwdriver and a chisel.  Or whatever those flat blade pokey things are called.

          But I tried.  I really did.  For several hours I tried to screw, hammer, and glue bits of wood together to make something that resembled the picture on the side of the box.  I scrutinized the instruction sheet trying to match up what the picture showed to what I had scattered on the floor around me.  At one point I was convinced the instructions were for a completely different piece and had been put into my box of sticks by mistake.

The whole exercise was not my idea of a simple life.

Fortunately, a neighbor who called in for a chat over a glass of wine, took pity on me and offered up her husband as a ‘very handy man.’  Bless his little cotton socks, he had the whole sideboard up and usable in short order; my crockery and stemware had a nice new home and we could get on with living the real simple life.  A lovely glass of Australian merlot….(she sighed.)