Chair Destroyer! A Tale of DIY Furniture

I am never purchasing furniture which requires assembly EVER again. I purchased a chair two years ago. When it was shipped up to college, it was disassembled, and it was up to me to put it back together again. It seemed a simple enough task, one I had not failed in two years ago. Lesson of today: previous success does not necessarily future success.

On the second day of school, I tried to screw the chair together. Instead, I somehow managed to embed the metal screw into the metal frame of the chair using my bare hands. When we finally called for help, a guy from downstairs managed to wrench it apart. The screws were sheared in half and impossible to dislodge from the frame. Somehow I had defied the possible.

The chair sat in its broken state for two weeks before a new frame came into the store. When I explained to the cashier that NO, I did not want a new frame, I wanted an already assembled new frame, she stared at me blankly. The discussion went something like this:
"I heard you have new dish chair frames in."
"Yes, I'll bring one to you."
"No, wait. You see, the reason I'm purchasing a new frame is because I broke the old one trying to assemble the chair."
"So..."
"So I'm going to need to take one out of here already assembled, like the one in the display window."
"Oh."

The manager was called, and the staff had a discussion. A member of the staff assembled the chair for me in exactly the manner I had intended. Somehow it worked for him where I had failed. I didn't ask questions. I just went with it.

A salesguy walked the chair out the door, but not before hitting the theft detectors and setting them off. He handed the chair to me outside, and wished me luck carrying it to my room. I stood in the sidewalk, trying to figure out how to best carry it away. The staff laughed from inside, watching me. I finally decided that the most convenient way would be to carry it on my back, like a turtle. This also happened to be the most hilarious looking way to carry it. My head was inside and my arms barely protruded, so it was generally the most bizarre looking thing I've ever engaged in.

People are generally good at ignoring each other and pretending that others are not of interest in the city. There were no pretenses, though, as I carted the chair through campus. My favorite moment, though, was then I saw a girl I knew talked to me as though there were nothing out of the ordinary, as though I did not look like an overgrown, misshapen silver tortoise. I was, dare I say it, the incarnation of THE AWKWARD TURTLE. Two legs, no head...so awkard! Thankfully, my suitemates passed me on the street and got a picture.

Finally, I had to open both of the doors of my dorm to get the chair in and cart it up four flights, waving it in the air in front of me. After crushing another suitemate against a wall as I got it into the suite, I set it down, triumphant. If I had a choice between assembling another chair and walking for a quarter of a mile hunched over with a chair on my back, I choose hunchback every time. Fuck you, assembly-required furniture. You are NOT a good idea and are NOT convenient, no matter what anyone says.