fandomhigh | Adulting 101- Monday- 4th period

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adulting

Adulting 101- Monday- 4th period

The class was in the Danger Shop today, and it looked like a bare apartment, save for some boxes. Some boxes with "IKEA" printed on the side.

"You guys lucked out, because I had an important but super boring class for you today, and I decided that'd be mean after vacation, so you get this instead," Kitty said. We'd see if they thanked her for this. "When you get a place, you need to furnish it. And that means sometimes putting stuff together. This is all from IKEA. If you haven't been to the Isle of IKEA over yonder, it's not a terrible way to spend the day as long as you don't mind losing your entire day to it. Basically you buy Swedish furniture and bring it home and get to put it together and then you forever have allen wrenches you have no other use for. There are other ways to get furniture, of course, but I'd bet against you not doing something like this if you end up staying around here, so. I have a few things for you to put together. There's a couple bookcases, an entertainment center, and a bed in the next room. The last two things require more than one person, so you might want to pair up for those. Open the box, read the instructions, make it work."

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Back from vacation.

Flick

Emma Swan

Raven Darkholme

Cosette Fauchelevent

Hanna Heller

Which is like thirty seconds, but hey.

You can put together bookcases on your own, or pair up for the entertainment center and bed.

No, your teacher's not trying to go easy on anybody.

Flick was actually glad for an activity like this. It meant he could use his hands and maybe distract himself from the thoughts in his head.

Raven flipped through one of the instruction books, baffled.

"There are no words in this. At all."

"And the pictures are amusing," added Cosette, who might have been holding an instruction sheet upside down and definitely was eyeing it skeptically, "but not at all helpful."

Raven leaned over a little to see which sheet Cosette was looking at. "I think this guy just broke the bed," she said, pointing to a little minimalist cartoon man looking dismayed at a rectangle with a crack in it. "Or the floor. Or maybe his foot."

Edited 2015-03-02 17:16 (UTC)

"Maybe he stepped on one of these little metal pieces," Cosette suggested, holding up a bag of assorted screws and washers. "How are we to tell which of them is which by just looking at pictures?"

"They're numbered," Raven said. "Are there any numbers on the screws? The big ones should be number 26x." She frowned, turning the instructions on their side. "Or 112996."

Cosette pulled one of the screws out of the bag, which involved maneuvering things around until she could poke the tip of it through the plastic and then ripping the hole open a little further.

"That's no good. There aren't any numbers on the screws themselves."

She held the screw up beside one of the screws on the drawing. "Are they . . . supposed to be the same size as the pictures?"

"I don't know," Raven said, getting frustrated. "There's no words." She shook her head, then turned the instructions around a few more times. "Okay, I think the bobbin holders are supposed to hook onto the -- uh -- lollipop looking screws."

'Lollipop' was not the first thing she thought of to describe what the screws looked like, but it wasn't sex pollen week anymore, so she went with the more class appropriate term.

"The ones with the skinny bit and then the big head."

"These? With the holes in the top instead of a slot?" IMAGINE IF THIS HAD BEEN THE CLASS ASSIGNMENT TWO WEEKS AGO. "Or -- no, do you mean these?"

She would still go with lollipop. That week hadn't gotten quite that educational for her.

"I still don't understand how you got the idea that they're supposed to . . . oh." It took a couple of seconds of squinting at an illustration further down the instructions, but she thought she got it. "Perhaps we should just separate out all the screws and little pieces first?"

"That's probably a good idea," Raven said. She grabbed the plastic the instructions had come in and bunched it up into a sort of awkward bowl. "Take inventory. Oh." She kind of wanted to smack herself in the forehead. "The Xs are how many there are!"

Cosette glanced at the instructions, then down at the number of wooden dowels she'd picked out of the bags, then burst out laughing, because what else were you supposed to do when you realized you'd embarrassed yourself? "You're right, they are, aren't they? That ought to make it a little bit easier, at least."

Marginally.

"The inventory part, anyway." Raven shook her head. "Why would anyone want to build their own furniture? That's what furniture makers are for."

She didn't really get model kits, either.

"I suppose it costs less that way," Cosette suggested. "I think my father did the same with everything in our house now, but it's not how I would prefer to spend my time, either."

She finished counting out one set of screws and started on another.

"What I don't see is why there have got to be so many different kinds of screws."

"Because plain old nails wouldn't be fancy enough?" Raven guessed.

"Or even just the wooden pegs," Cosette added, holding up one of said pieces. "It seems a bit silly to me to expect people to puzzle out all on their own how to put together a bed, and then give them hundreds of different little bits to do it with. Silly, and a little bit mean."

She studied the instructions a little while longer, then admitted, "Though I do have to say I'm enjoying it somewhat."

"I'm glad one of us," Raven huffed. "I guess we should make sure we have all the big pieces, too."

Cosette nodded and rifled through another plastic bag in search of the last of the bolts. And the allen wrenches. The ubiquitous, possibly-reproducing-inside-the-flatpacks, allen wrenches. "Those at least should be a bit easier. They don't all look the same. Why don't we find the slats for the sides of the frame, and lay them out, so we don't have to scramble around looking for them as we go?"

Raven was not so certain about the "don't all look the same" thing, but she was game enough to try. She sorted through the long slats and metal pieces for a bit before pulling out the ones she was pretty sure were the sides. "Which way do all the holes face?"

"Whichever way the fingers are pointing?" suggested Cosette, looking at the instructions again. Unless part of the assembly entailed poking one's fingers into the holes in the slats, which she wouldn't rule out at this point. "Here, I think these two -- they're longer, they must be the sides -- have two large holes on one end, but only one large hole at the other, and that's where the wooden pegs go. Maybe we ought to go ahead and put those in, so we can tell."

Finally, a concrete option. "I can do that," Raven said. ". . . The big pegs or the little pegs?"

". . . oh." And now Cosette needed to take a moment to just glare at the instructions, but offered one of each over to Raven. "Whichever ones seem like they fit best?"

Assuming they put the pegs into the right holes in a completely not dirty way.

Who's immensely glad that there was a week off and she didn't have to teach class right after sex pollen week. She was still hoping no one listened to radio.

I have that bed frame! It took me seven hours to put together because there was an OF happening and I was talking to people and I kept getting bored putting together a bed frame. So I tweeted a bunch of dirty stuff about getting screws in their holes.

People have casually invited me to their homes before with the hopes that I would put together their IKEA furniture for them.

Worse yet, it worked.

You so shouldn't have told me this when I'm planning a move. In a few months watch for an email all "Hey I know I'm several states away but I'm having this party..."

I keep telling you, if you want me to come over and help put together furniture I'll totally do it . . .

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Adulting 101- Monday- 4th period

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Listen to the lecture

Put together furniture

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