Monday 9 November 2009

B&Q: The Dream Catcher

Hi all,

It's getting dark and cold out there now isn't it?

I mean, it's November, the temperature is dropping and we've put the clock back an hour so Scottish farmers can have a lie in. This has always confused me to be honest. The number of farmers is Scotland cannot be that great in comparison to people who work in call centre's in Hull. Why can't Scottish farmers try this:

Get up an hour later! Stop making life a sodding pain every bloody winter!

Anyway, back to the plot.

Because you are indoors a lot more than in the summer months your eyes are drawn to all those little niggly things that get you down about your house. All those bits you had promised your partner you would do about 6 months ago. You know the kind of thing, putting up shelves, changing the cupboard doors, putting the handles on things, washing up, that kind of thing, and in a moment of madness you think to yourself

"Yes, I have become DIY man. I will now achieve in 1 day what it has taken me 6 months to avoid"

A dangerous thought at the best of times.
Now I was sitting in my lounge, because if I sat in the garden I would be cold, and I remembered that my partner had asked for a TV in our bedroom (apparently Most Haunted is more entertaining than me in that respect, I disagree and ask her to put the heating on) so I thought about it for a moment or two and decided the time had come. Armed with nothing but a badly thought out, malformed plan in my mind I headed straight for B&Q.

B&Q is the emporium of badly thought out plans. If you go in there, any day or time of the week during winter, you will see the sight of 100 men, with dreams in their eyes. They walk around with bags of screws, bits of MDF and fibreboard and they all look purposeful. They have a purpose, a plan, and they know exactly how they are going to do it.

I, along with them, carried my timber and MDF and nails knowing exactly how my TV stand for the bedroom was going to go together. It would have made the chippendale brothers weep at the beauty of my construction. The flowing lines, the carefully guilded edging, the way the drawer would open with the slightest whisper, and the contents organised by size and usefulness. The Tv itself would rest on an inlaid circular piece of wood, with grooves cut into it, and bearings, so the TV could be rotated without any physical effort. That was my plan, and you could see it in my eyes along with every other man who had entered the store.

So I got myself back home, and described my plan to my partner with emotion and vigour and how it would be awesomeness personified in wood. She, however, was incredulous.

After 3 hours I had made something that would be accepted by Tate modern as a piece of art, and enough injuries to make a Chippendale weep. I threw it in the garden with the rest of the failed projects, the pizza box fountain, the paper mache newspaper rack and the dreaded kitchen knife dispensor.

My partner was horrified. How could I have done such a thing? So we headed to Ikea, and it was there I had my revelation.

Women, you see, have grandeous ideas. They are just as good as ours, but they do something we don't. They look it up in a fucking catalogue. Us men, we have grandeous ideas too, but in our minds, is not this office dwelling muscleless clueless idiot, but a God of Furniture. A veritable superhero of dovetailing.

What I noticed as we walked around Ikea, was the sad mens faces all lined with the same thought...

I could have made that.

Thanks for reading,

3 comments:

Yao said...

Personally I'm happy that you failed, but hear me out before you brand me a cunt for that comment-

Had you succeeded with the amazing rotating gogglebox support mechanism you'd have been proud, perhaps even viewing yourself as a god amongst your fellow men. Perhaps your missus would have revered you, believing you to be able to put the a-team to shame with a foot of balsa wood and a stencil of the end half of the alphabet.

You'd have pointed this out...

To your friends...

Because you'd know you've succeeded where many have fallen, and that my friend is where you would demand your fellow brothers respect. What would make you the cunt in this scenario is that we'd be forced to provide that respect, all the while knowing man has evolved to the point that we can just go to fucking Ikea and buy some affordable Swedish crap, then get on with our day of evolving further away from Jesus and his carpentry pedantry.

Trev said...

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his cupboard shall be made,
And crowns for allen keys put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Bank Holiday Monday.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Home Improvement.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is when the glue will set.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had making a bookcase.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the bricky, B&Q and Argos,
Bang and Olufson, Ikea and Tesco Home Plus-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Bank Holiday Mondays shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world

Yao said...

Yao provides a standing ovation

Now that is worth respect; Truly thou art a god good sir!