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I had a dream that I had two testicles again, but that one of them was this weird Cronenberg mass of tissue and not a real testicle at all. This isn't too far from the truth as my remaining testicle has a harmless cyst growing on it that is about the size of a testicle. What was weirder, I suppose, is that I was able to view both testicles as there was a huge tear in my scrotum. I didn't find this weird and it didn't hurt, but I do remember thinking, "Oooh, I'd better be careful and stop fiddling around with this as if my testicles pop out of that hole it's going to be really painful."
I have my now annual scan and check up on the horizon and I guess I am a bit nervous about it- even if I am not three and a half years cancer free. Once you've had cancer the fears of its return never really leave you. And I guess that's what the weird dream was about. But why wasn't I more concerned about the sunroof in my ballsack?
Anyway a day off at home with the family and we took it mainly easy. But what did I get? Two days without torment. Before the next thing comes along to emasculate and confound me? Sure I can string a motherfucking sentence together, I can occasionally come up with a comedic conceit, I am a professional level ventriloquist and world champion self-playing snooker player, but can I do anything remotely useful or practical or that exists in the actual real world?
We got new sofas for the new place, for our posh lounge. I felt at the time that the number of pieces we had ordered was probably too much for the limited space, but went for it anyway. You may recall that some men struggled to get them into the room, but just managed it.
http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/21/08/2024/index.htmlBUT because the house was still a building site (we thought it would be done by the time the sofas arrived, but it wasn't and the sofas came early too) we didn't get the sofas assembled by those gnarly Tetris playing workmen and they've been wrapped up in polythene (thankfully no polystyrene) until today when I decided to see if I could get them assembled and work out if we'd over ordered.
It became clear pretty quickly that if we had the corner sofa, 2 person sofa and big swivel chair in this one room that there wouldn't really be any room for anything else, but luckily we had a vacancy for a sofa in the kids play room as it had been impossible to get my 20+ year old leather sofa in there (it's currently in my office where it won't be able to stay if I want to play snooker in there too). We'd ascertained all this without unwrapping anything, but the two person sofa was easy enough to get through the doors and narrow hallway and I got it in its new room and unwrapped it.
I would have to put the feet on the thing myself, but was confident I could do that. I can screw in screws. Man, I can build flat-pack furniture and only usually make three mistakes on the first go. So this would be easy.
The instructions, basic as they were, said to screw the feet into the holes provided, but there were no holes on the underneath part of the sofa. Only the holes from the travel feet that had mostly been removed by those furniture Yodas. Had we been sent duff sofas?
WHERE ARE THE FUCKING HOLES, YOU FUCKED UP FUCK FUCK? I paid for holes. Where are my holes?
I managed to find holes at the back for the plastic feet that no one will ever see. They were covered by the underchair fabric, but you basically just had to hammer them in. But they got in fine. But there were no screw holes for the wooden feet. I felt around on the basic area for ages to see if they too were behind the meshy stuff on the bottom, but there was nothing obvious and no indication of where exactly the feet should go. The drawing suggested a tiny bit in from the edge of the sofa, but gave no measurements. Had I felt the desire to start drilling holes (my drill was at the other house and also I have never used it) or to just take a punt and start screwing in the screws then I was pretty sure I would do more harm than good. Wood would be splintered, feet would be in slightly the wrong position, I'd probably sever an artery.
The builders are coming back to fix our snags next week and I am sure they'll do this simple task for us, but I was annoyed that the instructions weren't better and that we'd have to wait to have anything to sit on (the set up was exactly the same on the other sofa too - though the spinny chair didn't need feet so we can at least sit on that).
Again, I can see that the problem will be solved soon, but I am left feeling aggravated and impotent (that's nothing to do with the sofa though) and just annoyed that I have failed and wasted more of my time on something, which at least this time isn't completely my fault. I searched for the fucking screw holes that the literature promised for ages. I considered ripping off the fabric to see where the fuck they were. At least put some dots on the place where the feet are meant to go, you dodgy sofa makers.
Moving house has mainly just been filled with a sense of crushing inadequacy and disappointment and frustration. I am being toyed with by the gods, but they have at least given me a nice place to live in that will be really great if and when we ever get everything working. Oh but then some other problem will come along like the kids being bullied or unexpected bills or testicular cancer and I won't get a day of peace...
I don't know why we're so scared of dying. Suddenly all your problems disappear in a puff of smoke and you ride out the rest of infinity without a care in the world or (eventually) the dark, cold expanse of dead space. Do the dead look back and wish they could be trying to work out why smoke alarms won't start buzzing or why it isn't clearer how you're meant to put feet on a sofa? Nope. The dead don't do anything.
Lucky stiffs.
