If You Build It, They Will Come (After They Laugh at You)

September 18, 2007 - 9:29 AM by Benji

Rosh Hashanah has come and gone. You know what that means: New beginnings. New adventures. New furniture. Having begun year two of my aliyah experience, I bought a desk from Office Depot to organize my room. Nothing fancy, believe me. You see, I seem to have been born without the male gene which is responsible for assembling things, playing Madden football, and assembling things. I once said to my friend Hillery: “The man of the house is supposed to be the one who does all the home improvement stuff; what am I going to bring to the table?! I CAN’T EVEN BUILD A TABLE!” Hence, my purchase of the simplest model in stock.

I swear, especially after watching my friend Ari put together a bed, a closet, and Stonehenge, I told myself I was going to give it a real shot. So I tear open the box, hoping for a nice English-style manual with instructions, graphics, and such, only to find this.

No instructions, just one page with a graphic showing every step seemingly happening at once. No order. If Einstein had been hanging out in my living room, perhaps I would have been more successful, but my relationship with space and time is pretty much the same as yours. They even threw in extra pieces just to confuse me.

Office Depot worker: “Moti! Look! I em edding eks-trah wood parts! Deh stoo-peed Ah-mer-icahn weel neh-ver know waht hit him!”

The most humiliating part about these “de-structions”? In the lower left corner, they read “b’hatzlacha (good luck)!” Not only did Office Depot give me no chance to build this thing, they decided to rub it in as well. I could practically hear them laughing miles away.

Screw you, Office Depot.

Within roughly five minutes, I summoned my roommate Rotem who apparently received the same engineering degree I did. No luck. I told him how I had to convince the taxi driver to pick me up with the boxed-up desk in the back seat.

Driver: “Mah zeh (what is this?)”
Me: “Zeh shulchan (it’s a table)!”
Driver: “Zeh hovala! (This is a move/you need a mover!)”
Me: “Nu, ani gar chamesh dakot m’po (Come on, I live five minutes from here).”
Driver: (silently deciding how much he wants to screw me) Shloshim shekel (thirty shekels, well above the meter)”

What, he’s gonna up the price because he has a box in the back seat? What the hell? I told Rotem this and he responded, “If you were fat, would he charge you more too?”

Anyway, the story ends in embarrassing fashion with my friend Rani coming over and putting it together in FIVE MINUTES. He might as well have just taken my genitals as well. Hey, but now I have a desk. Thank G-d my room has a built-in closet. It’s gonna be a great year.

Cross-posted at What War Zone???

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