Puting it all together

First of all I have to unwrap all the packages and get rid of all the cardboard and plastic. What is left is metal framework, screw, bolts table tops, little plastic T shaped things, and a couple of manuals that make no sence. I will have to concentrate very hard to get this thing constructed.

Innocently I mention that I saw a clock advertised in HS for 2€ and that starts off a long discussion about Finnish quality, Finnish design, craftsmanship, beauty, costs, slave labour, exploitation, the third world, self worth, joy, form, function.

For me a clock has to perform a function and that is to tell the time. If it is pleasing to the eye then so much the better. I am not particularly interested if the clock is made out of chrome and looks like a binicle on a ship, or is contrived to function as a stool, or looks like an aeroplane, and costs the earth into the bargain.

Try reading an IKEA manual and carrying on a conversation about values at the same time. Either you are going to do damage to yourself with a screwdriver becasue you are not concentrating on the construction, or you are going to do damage to your relationship by saying things that you would not normally say if you weren't so absorbed by fitting nuts and bolts together to get an IKEA computer table to stand on its own two legs.

After 1.5 hrs the table was built and if I must say it looks damn fine. I feel like a bloddy artisan.