No one wants their last words to be "Oh my God! The old gypsy woman was right..."
My favourite TV networks are PBS, Food Network, and Home and Garden. I watch a lot of reno shows, particularly Holmes on Homes (which has given me a permanent case of paranoia over ever hiring a contractor after seeing the messes he’s had to clean up.) But I’m one of those guys who can measure three times, cut once, and still get it wrong. Today we bought a new BBQ and it was truly a case of frustration putting it together.
What’s with the instructions that come with stuff you have to assemble? Well at least the English used wasn’t a translation of Japanese by a someone from China who studied it for a semester and studied English even less, I guess I ought to be grateful for that small mercy. However, you’d think they would notice during proofreading (one assumes they did proofread the directions before sending them to the printer)that the pictures they used were, shall we say, less than helpful. Case in point, when assembling the side burner there was a picture with a caption that stated, note the position of the holes. Only problem was, the photo was too faint, the holes did not show. I took a guess and got it right but still wasted a lot of time trying to decipher the photo. The manufacturer provided all the screws, bolts etc, all neatly separated, and labeled, in plastic bubbles on a piece of cardboard. Problem is to get at those items you had to rip the cardboard off and lost all that precious info (and why did they have to use six different sizes of screws - why not just one.) Par for the course I got to the last part - putting the hinges on the cover for the side burner and I did not have the right screws left, or for that matter even enough screws of the ones I did have left. Yup parts left over and no frikken idea of where they belong. Oh well, off to the hardware store tomorrow to get eight self tapping screws of the correct size (fortunately they do mention the sizes in the instructions.) A handyman I definitely am not 
Technorati Tags: PBS, Food Network, Home and Garden, reno shows, Holmes on Homes, measure three times, cut once, handyman
Never mind dear, you’re every other kind of desirable man, and we will enjoy the BBQ all the more due to your herculean efforts!
Diane 
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4:58 pm 4/15/2008