Cabinet Decision : A Do-It-Yourself Challenge From Sweden Revokes the Right of Assembly

IF YOU HAVE ever thought that you were frustrated trying to assemble or operate something made in Japan, consider yourself lucky that you haven’t tried to assemble something made in Sweden.

In furnishing my new at-home office, I found that I needed something with drawers in it. I mean those shallow catch-all drawers into which one drops all kinds of gadgets or thingamajigs that are forgotten until they suddenly become essential--batteries, notebooks, rulers, scissors, stamps, credit cards, erasers, magnifying glasses and so on.

I drove out to Plummer’s in Pasadena and found a cabinet I thought would do. It was 25 inches high, on rollers, with two three-inch drawers on top and a file drawer below.

It cost $159.06, including tax. The salesman told me I could pick it up at the store’s warehouse. “It’s 12 blocks west, on Del Mar,” he said. He added, as if it were of no importance, “It will come in a flat box. You’ll have to assemble it.”

My heart sank. I remembered that I had bought three seven-foot wall shelves at Plummer’s some years earlier and had had to assemble them . I bogged down in the middle of the project and had to call upon one of my sons to complete it.

“I have to assemble it myself?” I asked, with obvious dismay.

“It’s very simple,” the clerk assured me. “You get instructions.”

I drove to the warehouse and handed my receipt to a man at the receiving desk. He went back into the warehouse for the cabinet himself. It came in a large, flat cardboard box, about 3x4 feet. He carried it out to the car and put it in the trunk.

When I got home, I found the box was too heavy for me to lift out of the trunk. I cut it open in the trunk and removed the pieces one by one. There were 18 sections of wood in various sizes, two plastic packages of screws and bolts, eight strips of metal (four with rubber wheels at each end), five wheels or rollers and a sheet of paper on which there were 12 illustrations and exactly five English words. One said “Front.” The other four said “Turn right to lock.” And, in what I took to be Swedish, “ Vrid at hoger for lasning “ (with assorted umlauts.)

I piled the parts on the sidewalk, carried them in a few at a time and laid them out on the floor of my new office. The sight was demoralizing.

I decided that at least I should try. After all, I was supposedly a person of above-average intelligence. The drawers looked easiest. None of the illustrations showed how to assemble the drawers.

Using sheer intelligence, and driven by pride, I finally assembled the two drawers and the file. I sat in a chair and studied the remaining pieces. They were dotted with screw holes which, I assumed, ought to provide some clue.

I could not conceive of any way in which the several pieces could be put together. I thought of calling my son. Then I said to myself, “You’re an intelligent human being. You’ve read most of Hemingway and half of Shakespeare. You have an IQ of more than 100. Just figure it out.”

I studied the various pieces, glancing now and then at the instructions. I decided finally that the instructions were useless. I could figure out which pieces formed which sides of the cabinet, but I couldn’t see how they were to be put together. I decided that the eight metal strips, four of which had rubber wheels at each end, were the runners on which the drawers slid in and out, but I couldn’t see how to install them.

Finally, in humble surrender, I telephoned my son. He said he’d come by after work; he arrived at 6:30. He said he had to be home before 8 because he was going out.

He squatted on the floor, whistling tunelessly. He examined the drawers I had put together. He sort of laughed.

“You have a screwdriver?” he asked. Of course I had a screwdriver. I had used a screwdriver to assemble the drawers. He picked up one of the drawers, and a corner separated. He tightened all the screws. So I had done the right things; I just hadn’t tightened the screws enough. Not a failure of intelligence, just one of application.

He looked at his watch, whistling lightly, and began. There was some trial and error, but in general the cabinet began to take shape. In 45 minutes he was finished.

I was pleased to have it done, but depressed by the undeniable demonstration of my own stupidity.

“There’s no doubt about it,” I told him. “You’re more intelligent than I am.”

At least I had learned how to say “Turn right to lock” in Swedish.