Teamwork: Building an IKEA Thing

We bought Chooch a loft bed thing from IKEA and are spending today assembling it while Chooch is at Judy’s, so like a pre-Xmas surprise I guess.

If you’ve ever had to work with me on anything before, you probably know that I’m fragile and prefer to collapse in a listless heap on a fainting couch rather than actually involve my hands in any actual labor. But the IKEA instructions said that Henry needed a helper:

“Considering you’re the second person, I’d be better off doing this alone,” Henry sighed, four new gray hairs sprouting along his temple.

Mostly I have just been sitting here, except for when I stand up to perform kickboxing moves to Icarus the Owl or Henry forces me to help him carry parts up from the living room to alleviate all the trips he would have to take on his own.

“Do you enjoy doing these things?” I asked him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled almost inaudibly. Then he dropped the 50-page instruction booklet next to me and I just let it sit there until he picked it up himself.  

“A real man would have cut down a tree and built his own loft bed,” I pointed out as Henry used one of the wussy IKEA-approved tools to tighten a bolt or nut or acorn. His response was to just stare at me with steely orbitals of ire.

“WHY U TRYNA GET ON MY LEVEL?!” I cried overzealously when he got down on the floor. He grimaced at me in response.

Later, he dropped a piece of the frame and I screamed, and I mean SCREAMED, “Nice one!” He’s trying to blame me for it, something about how it was one of the pieces I brought upstairs and I allegedly leaned it against the wall with the rounded end on the ground, OH OK professional bed builder.

I wish you guys would have been here when he declared, “I know one thing’s for sure: it is fucking hot in here” and I screamed, “TAKE IT OFF!” while firing up the instavid but he went in the bathroom so I couldn’t record him stripping.

Now he’s bitching at me because I’m supposed to be holding this thing but instead I’m standing here blogging on my phone.

“It’s cold. I want to make coffee,” I groaned.

“JUST HOLD THIS FOR A SECOND AND THEN IDGAF WHAT YOU FUCKING DO AFTER THAT, YOU CAN LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK I DONT CARE! I KNOW YOURE NOT MUCH HELP BUT I NEED YOU TO JUST TRY FOR A SECOND.”

Wow just wow.

Then after half-heartedly holding a thing while Henry screwed some stuff into it, I was dismissed.

“K, I’m gonna go make coffee. Do you want anything, bae?” I asked, not able to finish without cracking up.

“Yeah, water,” he growled in his hushed action-hero tone.

“SERIOUSLY?! I was just kidding! Ugh, God!” I yelled, and he gave me A Look overtop of his glasses. So I guess now I have to get him water. This is fucking ridiculous.

I made the mistake of coming back upstairs and he asked me WHILE I HAD CRACKERS IN MY HAND to move things for him?! So I moved one of the four things while mouthing off and then quit so he had to GOD FORBID lift a fucking finger and do the rest himself. Cry him a river, ladies and gentlemen!

First mistake of the day: Henry realized he put a piece on backward and is swearing like he just lost a limb in ‘Nam. “Cant you just take it off?” I asked and he considered this before calmly saying, “Yes, I can take it off.” So now he is taking it off and I wonder why this was worth yelling about but then I remember that not everyone is as calm and even-keeled as me.

Henry’s a fucking IKEA savage.

Ron Swanson would definitely not approve of this.

But most importantly, I have coffee now.

Henry just took that piece off and now is all confused so I suggested that he just call the IKEA hotline and he is very offended.

“IM GONNA TELL YOU WHAT!!!!” Henry snapped at me.

“GO AHEAD, TELL ME!!!” I sassed right back because Henry is like the funniest thing ever when he’s angry.

“Pick that side up and turn it,” Henry instructed.

“Which way?”

“that way.”

“WHICH way?”

“THAT way.”

“WHICH WAY?!?!”

“THAT WAY!!!!!!!” Henry shouted, having to drop his end of the plank so that he could point since I’m not fluent in head motions.

Oh for Christ’s sake, if there had been a video of us trying to lift this huge piece onto the top of the frame, I’d have to retire from the Internet because it was fucking chaos and off-the-charts in annoyance levels. It was just me screaming like Pee Wee Herman and Henry yelling “I HAVE THE WEIGHT OF IT, YOURE JUST GUIDING IT!” And then when I asked if I could let go, it was all, “FOR CHRISTS SAKE, DO NOT LET GO!!”

But I thought he had the weight of it?!?!

“That’s ok. I don’t need my back anyway,” he just muttered as I fled the scene.

I helped pick that thing up, no big deal.

It’s about 3 hours in and I excused myself to walk to CVS and buy a bag of Christmas bows to eventually stick all over the thing if it ever gets done. That has been the only thing I could handle today, plus I needed some air after I MAYBE POSSIBLY inhaled asbestos, which caused Henry to get all up in arms because he is evidently the resident asbestos expert and claims there’s “no way” that I “swallowed asbestos” so now I really hope that I did.

I wore my crochet TOMS on my walk because I forgot that it’s winter so now I’m pretty sure I have the flu.

But in any case, I’m back and ready to (not) help Henry. He just dropped something that sent things scattering across the floor and when I screamed WHAT DID YOU DO HENRY he snidely said, “Nothing.” Ugh fuck off.

Henry has spent the last hour without a hammer because he somehow “lost it.” Every five minutes or so he mumbles, “This would be a lot easier with a hammer” so I said, “It’s right there” and then when he turned around excitedly, I yelled, “MADE YOU LOOK!!” Oh shit, he fell for it. The oldest trick in the book!

“When I find it, I’m going to hit with you it,” he snapped. TAKE NOTE, INTERNET. If I ever disappear, it’s because Henry is a short-fused brute.

BRUTE WITH A LADDER.

Also, we just learned that we have to get a new light fixture now because the ceiling fan is in the way. We really put a lot of thought into this.

I was mocking Henry and ended it with a full-fledged theatrical vocal gag and, around the pencil he has between his lips, Henry said, “The only time I want to hear you make that sound is…..when you’re choking on water.”

OH GOOD ONE.

Henry’s face when he told me to move and I said no.

Well, we took a 30-minute break to run the van back to Henry’s work and for me to listen to Dance Gavin Dance songs super loud in the car, but don’t worry—we’re back at it! Supposedly he’s “almost done” and then I get the burdensome task of trying to rearrange all the crap in this junkyard of a bedroom.

If we had done this last Sunday like I originally wanted, we’d be done by now. JUST A THOUGHT.

Talking to himself while thumbing through the instructions and making me hold a thing while I’m blogging with one hand because SKILLS.

“Ew, there’s a spider on this!” I cried.

“Yeah, it’s been there,” Henry calmly answered.

“EW DID IT COME WITH THE BED?!” I asked, like IKEA was like “Thanks for choosing IKEA here’s a Swedish spider.”

“No, hand me the screwdriver,” Henry muttered.

An hour later and Henry is working on the drawers and I’m on “clean-up” duty which really sucks but look at what I did all on my own!!!

Here’s the view from inside, IM JEALOUS:

But then I climbed the ladder to make his bed and never mind. Not jealous. Omg heights.

Meanwhile, Henry is in our bedroom putting the drawers together while I finish decorating. THIS IS CALLED WORKING INDEPENDENTLY OF EACH OTHER.

Henry: why do you keep taking pictures of me.

Me: because this is going on my blog…?

Like why does he even ask I don’t get it.

HENRY WATCH YOUR HEAD, BAE.

“It’s a good thing Lisa and I canceled our plans today,” I mused. I was supposed to go to her house this afternoon so she could help me out on the Jamberrys that have laid around my house for like a year because I’m Erin Rachelle Kelly and I can’t dooooooooo it.

Henry grumbled, “I’m sure I could have done it without you.”

EW!!! NO CHILL!!!

Although I will say that Henry looks kind of cute with his baseball cap on backward. Ugh.

“I can’t wait for you to read this,” I giggled.

“Yeah. And I can’t wait to be mad at you all over again.”

YESSSSSS this is the part I’ve been waiting for! To stuff Doll in a drawer! We’re done! Now Henry can go bring Chooch  home and I can start drawing up the FREE NINE-YEAR-OLD craigslist ad in case he doesn’t act grateful enough!

Henry just called me from the car to see if I wanted him to get me food and now we’re fighting over who ate less today on account of IKEA sucking. He only ate an egg sandwich and caramel creams so I hung up on him before he could figure out that he won.

And now, seven hours later:

Well guys, Chooch is home and I would say that it’s a success!