Desks, aka Too Many Screws

I think I mentioned that my mom was buying out her boss's business, since he was retiring this year. They sealed the deal on October first, and my mom has decided she wants to, er, update the building. As part of that, she ordered two desks. This afternoon, I went over with her to "help" put them together.

And I now know the biggest difference between cheap put-together furniture and high-end put-together furniture. High-end furniture is intended to last a long time and be stable. This means that it comes with a whole ruddy lot more fasteners. Also, sturdier fasteners. No cheap plastic pseudo-L-brackets. Nope. Thirty-six metal L-brackets instead, most of which go in awkward to reach nooks and corners. If I'd realized this, I would have brought down an electric screwdriver. As is, my hand gave out before we got done. So the first desk is about half put together and the second is still in the box. Oh, and I expect I'll have blisters tomorrow.

One minor snag. On one of the panel pieces, the holes for the L-brackets were drilled just a shade too close to the edge, like a sixteenth of an inch or so. One flat edge is supposed to line up with the edge of the panel, so that when its attached to the other panel, they're flush. Well, these have a slight gap. We'll see how obvious it is when the rest of the desk gets put together.

In other news, next week I seem to have volunteered to drive down to a philosophy conference. Now if I can just find out, oh, where it is and when it starts, that would be good. It's not a deadline day in Math 108, so Linda can cover that by herself. It's quite likely that Dr. Levenson will be going down as well, but even if he's not, missing class for it shouldn't be a problem. All that leaves is to cancel my office hour.