Rock Around the Clock

Putting my rocking chair was worth the effort.

Shopping in Coppel yesterday, we stopped to watch three of the store employees assembling a rocking chair just like two we bought a few months ago. I nudged Larry and pointed out that they were attempting the task without benefit of tools. 

“They can’t do it without a drill,” I said, thinking they’d also probably need a hammer and a hacksaw. When the three noticed us staring and stopped working to stare back, Larry smiled his most engaging smile and explained, “It’s difficult. We have one. It’s very difficult.”

We didn't stay to see their further progress. If their experience was anything like ours, they were going to be there for a couple of hours and a lot of cursing was going to take place. 

The framework of the chairs is tubular steel, bent to shape, with holes pre-drilled to accept one of four sizes of bolts. It would take at least two of the workers to hold the pieces in place while one tried to slide each bolt through two sets of holes and then screw on a nut. Everything has to line up just so, or the bolts won't go through the holes, and sometimes even then the bolts are not long enough for the threads on the nuts to catch.

Once we got all the parts unwrapped and the nuts and bolts organized, we discovered that we had no good diagram or even a photograph of how all those pieces were intended to fit together. We are not total fools. We have assembled several pieces of furniture in our lives. Nothing compared with these chairs. 

When we got the first one together all except the bottom brace, we had to guess which direction it was supposed to face. It did not fit either way. The bent steel was at the wrong angle, and the holes weren't even close to aligning. After exploring all other possible solutions (the number was not infinite), Larry brought out his hammer and drill. He soon had the first chair fully assembled.

The second chair did not go together any more easily than the first, but the same treatment brought the same end result. By the end of the afternoon, we had two well-built and comfortable rocking chairs. 

We use them every day. If you visit us, we will direct you to sit on them, as they are the most comfortable furniture in the house. Seeing the young people at the store struggling through the assembly reminded me of our sense of accomplishment once the job was done and made me appreciate my rocking chair even more.