Mom's Computer Shelf Project

I spent the better part of the day constructing and hooking up a new computer shelf (it is technically a media shelf for things like radios and CD players). Right now, I'm just testing to see if everything works. Which, obviously, they do.

It's strange. This is the second time I can remember my mind just shutting off as I was doing some kind of work similar to an assembly line. The first time being when I was in Sculpture 1 back in the spring.

At first, when my mother brought this thing home, I was expecting to do all the technical parts of the project. You know, disconnect the computer, reconnected it, bitch, moan, and otherwise complain about how that piece of furniture wasn't needed because the old system worked fine.

And true to my nature, I did just that.

Eventually, after some procrastination on my dad's part, I ended up helping him start the assembly process. Then he left with my mom to go to church. A part of me wanted to just leave the project out of sheer spite for what was expected from me. Several hours earlier, my mother wanted me to take pictures of the lawn when she was more than capable herself. This while I was disconnecting everything on this machine. That added with the pent up anger of what a VMK buddy of mine calls "a simple request that invades your sense of independence" (like I have any) just made me wish she was dead.

But I didn't leave the cabinet there with only the drawer rails screwed into the interior of what was going to be bottom. I wanted to, but I couldn't. It was strange, but a part of me that I never knew about just took over and I started building this thing that holds the computer right now. Slowly at first, but then eventually everything became second nature.

I didn't care about what my mom said earlier. I didn't care that I was the only one putting the shelf together. I didn't even care about the fact that I have more important things to do with my time than build a shelf I didn't care anything about.

I just kept building it to the point where all that was left was to nail in some paper backing to the drawer part of the shelf's bottom. And that was the easy part, which I left to my dad. At that point, I was working for about two straight hours with no break. I needed a break.

After all was said and done, we found a problem with the drawer. It wouldn't close the right way, which meant something was wrong with either the alignment or the drawer itself. Turned out to be the drawer's guide rail on the interior of the cabinet portion. Damn holes were pre-drilled too high, so it made everything off centered. I ended up fixing it using super glue my mom keeps for her craft projects. Now I just hope the drawer doesn't fuck up some time between now and when Mom puts stuff in it.

Then, about half a hour before I started blogging this, I put everything back together as best as I could given the space requirements for each piece of equipment. I'm going to have to explain why I put the scanner on the top open shelf instead of on the shelf where the printer is, however. (It's so we can scan books when we need to without bending the binding some stupid way so we don't risk damaging the book.)

My mom jokingly asked what I wanted when she saw I had finished about 95% of her project. (She never does do her own work when it comes to these kind of things. She likes to get her hands dirty only with clean projects like floral arrangements and cleaning the house. She'd never touch a tool unless she has to.) I said nothing in reply. She kept squealing like some mother of a 4^th grader for about five minutes. I can only wonder how she is going to react when she sees the mess downstairs is pretty much cleaned up. Not to mention the fact that I did all that work putting the shelf back where she wanted it and how she wanted all the technology arranged. At least for the most part.

One thing still bothers me, however. How the hell did I end up with so many extra screws? I mean, I followed the directions to the letter! I should only end up with one extra shelf and four pairs of supporters for that shelf. But apparently I have an extra small screw and another set of longer screws that I used to join the walls of the drawer together.