13th February 2018
Imagine the scene in black and white with a piano clanking a nineteen twenties backdrop.
Dave, Kelli’s father, called to ask for some help to move a table top that he had refinished, from his basement workshop to the kitchen.
When we both got there he was still trying to fit the skirt to the top. He was attempting to align the screw holes with little success. ” We need to move it round” he proclaimed, so we proceeded to rotate it hoping to find the correct placement. First it was ninety, then one hundreds and eighty degrees, and eventually we were back to the start. “That’s it he proclaimed!”. Kelli looked at me with a smirk.
The next job was getting it upstairs. Kelli at the top, me at the bottom, both hoping that we didn’t scratch the top surface. It was bloody heavy, but with a few medieval oaths uttered we set it down on the kitchen floor. The next part was to fix the round legs. Dave inserted the first threaded stud into the hole, whilst I attempted to fit a washer and nut at the same time, I couldn’t get the nut to run up the thread, it would start, but then jammed. I was starting to doubt my ability to do such a simple task. Kelli then asked if it was the right nut, there was silence. Dave ruffled around in his pockets and pulled out some old style Square nuts ” these are what was on the legs before ”
He was trying to fit newer hexagon nuts with a different thread, as these didn’t work, he went back to his workshop to find more of the square nuts. Meanwhile I decided to remove a piece of the under structure to make the assembly of the legs easier. I proceeded to remove some bloody big screws holding it all together. In total there were eight of the biggest screws known to man. As the last screw fell out, I discovered that Dave had also glued the piece, which made the whole activity a waste of time.
However it did allow him to find the original nuts, so we proceeded to fit the legs.
With a final piece of strength we managed to move the table into position. I thought that the job was done, but no, next I had to place anti slip pads under the little wheels of the table legs. Just as I finished doing that, Dave decided to move the table, out popped the wheels from the anti-slip pads. I repeated the fitting, and stood back ready to leave. Again he moved it slightly, and again the wheels popped out.
“Why don’t you decide where you want the table?” I said in a desperate tone. Finally he decided on the final place, and I refitted the pads again. Both Kelli and I were exhausted, it had taken over an hour, and we were desperate for something to eat.
Drained of any energy, we both got in the car and headed home.
Another Lifetime to go 