Give Ikea what they want! Pay them

I think they’re called “teachable moments” — that’s when something happens, possibly challenging or negative, and those involved find a lesson in it. It’s an unplanned opportunity to learn something valuable. It’s a true gift.

I had such a gift last weekend while moving our kid into her first-ever rental home. It’s a place she’s sharing with three university friends.

Last year, she lived in a dorm room so the moving process was simple. We chucked as much of her stuff as we could fit into our Honda and drove it five hours to her dorm. I then carried a bunch of heavy stuff through the halls trying to dodge other dads doing the same thing. We were all trying to be nice about it — but you should have seen how quickly we pounced when a communal dolly became available.

“Are you done with that dolly?” became the catch phrase of the day. The other one? “No.”

This year, we weren’t dealing with mobs of parents and students swarming into dorm rooms. We were on our own to get our kid and her stuff into an empty little room at the end of the hall in her rented home. So we jammed a Honda full of stuff and a Subaru full of stuff but neither car could hold some key, bulky items — a bed and a chest of drawers.

These items we wisely ordered and scheduled delivery for move-in day. Pretty slick, we are. Except ... we ordered our items from Ikea.

Now, I don’t want to offend the fine folks at Ikea and I’m sure they won’t really feel the sting when I say this but ... Ikea, your furniture is, like, really, really hard to assemble.

Fortunately for us (I think) we had help from a roommate’s boyfriend whose actual name is “Dord.”

I say, “I think” because I really don’t know if Dord stands behind his craftsmanship. He didn’t seem committed to quality.

The bed and dresser arrived as an intimidating array of boxes. My job was the dresser. Dord was foreman of the bed building.

Now, Ikea, again, I don’t mean to offend but ... the dresser came with some instructions that had me slightly confused. Step 1 was to attach one wood panel to another wood panel using a series of locking screws and other bits of hardware. Step 2 was to take the remaining 10 pieces of wood and 119 screws, nuts, washers, dowels and other bits of metal and put it all together in dresser form.

Well, at least Ikea doesn’t just deliver a log and an Allen wrench with the instructions, “Have at it.” Ha ha. They don’t do that, right? Right?

I worked away, trying to carefully decide which wood piece was which and what screw went where and how a wooden dowel is a viable connector. I sweated a lot and swore a little.

While fully concentrating on which wood panel was the left and which was the right, Dord cried out for help. He had the bed assembled save for two metal strips, a handful of screws and a couple other miscellaneous parts. He was declaring victory. Or defeat. He didn’t know or care at this point. Neither did I.

Obviously, something was not done correctly because there was hardware left over. But, the thing Dord built looked like a bed. All it has to do is stay together and even if it doesn’t, it only sits a foot or so off the ground so it’s not like injuries are likely. The thing doesn’t have to fly or survive a high-impact crash. It’s pretty much a wooden pallet on legs. Short legs. Leglets, really.

By our strict standards, it was “good enough.”

And our teachable moment? I taught Dord that if he ever, ever has to order from Ikea again in his life, he should absolutely pay the extra fee to have them assemble it. It doesn’t matter what it costs. Just pay it. Pay it! Do anything you have to do to get the money and pay them.

It’s not worth it, Dord, it’s just not. We survived this time but just barely. Give Ikea what they want! Pay them, Dord.