Pick-A-Day

August 2008
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I am not nuts.

So after getting 75% of the way through assembling my new Ikea bed last night, I realized that I misplaced the metal piece that goes from the headboard to the foot.

It’s right there in step 9: Take the metal bar, pull on it to extend it to the proper length, then put it in the fittings at the head and foot designed to hold it—it’s the last step before putting on the lattenrost!

I spent a lot of time searching for this not-insignificantly small piece of metal. I looked all over the floor, in the closet, in the other bedrooms, in the living room, in the hallway, outside my flat door—even though, I might add, I hadn’t been in many of these spots since opening the box from Ikea.

The thing wasn’t even in my dirty clothes—I know, because I checked.

I’d confessed my loss last night to my colleague who went shopping with me, via SMS: “I’m 75% thru building bed. Yea! I lost a key piece of metal! Fuck. I hope it shows up in the am or I may need to cry.”

So he came over this morning—and he searched the house while I put the finishing touches on my side table and attached it to the bed frame. He couldn’t find it. He even checked the kitchen, in the unlikely event I’d carried it in there while having a pasta-attack last night.

We took a break and hung my new window shade before returning to the hunt.

Even he was impressed that such a large metal object could vanish in my flat—even as I kept track (and counted) all the small bits of hardware before I started. After awhile he agreed that it was time to call Ikea, which he did for me because mein Deutsch ist Schlecht.

It was impressive, after he got through to the “Idiot Customers Needing Help” department at Ikea, he merely began to describe the problem in the loosest of terms: “we bought a bed, we’re assembling it, and a piece is missing,” when he was informed we were missing the Skorva, and that it costs 10€, and that it’s highly recommended, but not absolutely necessary, nor is it included, despite the fact that the thing is right there in the instructions, and despite the fact that I would have sworn, in a court of law, that I had handled the thing last night when unpacking the boxes.

Such a beautiful explanation, never mind the fact that the piece played a huge role in my dreams last night, while also being responsible for me spending two hours searching my flat where the principle thing I learned was that it’s really dusty under my desk.

Sigh.

5 comments to I am not nuts.

  • disenchanted

    What the hell?

  • Neil

    Believe it or not – the exact same thing happened to me 3 years ago when I became a queer expatriate myself.

  • @disenchanted: Exactly

    @Neil: I managed to postpone my learning experience by four years… At least I had a friend who could console me when I started getting depressed after having “lost” the thing. He told me I should be angry at Ikea.

  • Aw man, I can completely understand your frustration. It is in the instructions… thus it should be in the box!

    So… did you go get the piece?

  • @Snooker: You have no idea… TWO HOURS I spent looking for it! I’ll get it soon-my colleague’s wife is going to Ikea in the next week and she’ll pick it up for me and then I will install it.