Turning The Tables

We recently bought the house we are renting.  We are all growed up now and have to worry about things like building insurance, damp kitchens, leaking roofs and paying back the bank a shit load of cash.  When we rented the house we rented it part furnished.  I say part, what this actually meant was the landlady had some stuff she wanted to leave there and we were seriously lacking in furniture. We came to a mutually beneficial agreement.  We would use her furniture and save us buying some and she wouldn't have to store it (Why would she? She owned a fucking house!).  This worked out rather well for us for 2 years.  Then we bought the house.  FUCK, we need to spend a gazillion dollars on furniture!  Fortunately the God of Fate was smiling on us (I actually don't believe in such a god, so let's just say things worked out well).  Our landlady didn't want all her furniture back and she offered to sell us most of it at rather a great price.  We happily accepted.  It left us with the house pretty much as we'd known it.  With 2 notable differences.  She took the nice dining room table and chairs and the mattress off the bed in the spare room.  We needed to replace these things.

The mattress was easy enough.  We walked into a shop that sold beds and mattresses and said, "Give us your cheapest double mattress please".  £99. Bargain.  It's only for the spare room. It's not like it needs to be a NASA memory foam job. (I actually HATE those memory foam things.  Feels strange when I lie on it. I like a proper sprung mattress.) We have people staying over very rarely.  Mainly because I don't like people coming round to my house (See here), let alone STAYING OVER!!! Jesus, imagine people STILL being there the next day... *shudders*.

The table was a little more work.  We had a nice table before with the landlady's.  Nice chairs too.  In our minds we were trying to find something pretty much the same.  We had a look around and it became clear this was going to cost us rather a lot of money.  Eventually we went to the home section bit of The Trafford Centre and had a look in all the different shops.  We walked into British Home Stores and saw a table and chairs that was pretty much everything we were looking for.  And bonus, it was half price.  We bought it there and then and they said someone would be in touch to arrange delivery and assembly.  £35.  Ouch! Delivery AND assembly.  Is there no other option?  I am quite capable of putting a table together.  I asked the question and said could they not just deliver it for a cheaper price and I would put it together.  They said it was an all-in-one package and the only option they had.  I had little choice but to accept it.  Then next day someone contacted me and a delivery date was set.  They ONLY did Tuesdays in my area. During office hours.  "La-la-laaaa. Not listening. That's what we do and we are not flexible."  They offered two possible Tuesdays.  What about another Tuesday that is not one of those two?  "La-la-laaaa. Not listening. That's what we do and we are not flexible."  I chose the Tuesday after Easter Monday (not daft me) and, with a little juggling, arranged to work from home.  I also arranged the mattress delivery for the same day to take full advantage of working at home that day.

The day arrived and the table arrived at 8:10am.  I was impressed.  They said between 8am and 10am.  The 2 blokes started carrying boxes into the dining room and set about building the table.  I had a quick peek to make sure it looked like the right table and left them to it. 10 minutes later they announced they were done.  It looked ok, apart from being 90 degrees wrong in the dining room, but I hadn't specified and could easily move it.  I signed the papers. As a parting shot the bloke said that my dining room floor was a mile out.  He left and I quickly legged it into the dining room. Just as I feared the table rocked like a bastard. And I don't mean it was Jimi Hendrix.  I mean it wobbled.  One leg was a few millimeters off the floor. I hoped it was the floor at that angle, as the table needed turning 90 degrees, and rotated it.

Nope. Still wobbling. Still the same leg.  Fucking fuck fuckers!

I got my tape measure out and measure all the legs. They were all the same length. Relief.  The table was fine. It had just been assembled by numpties.  I went and got my tool box.  I loosened the nuts and bolts and the table relaxed.  All four legs were now on the ground.  I got everything nicely settled and systematically tightened everything back up.  Problem solved.  Took me 5 minutes.  It wasn't exactly Rocket Science.  It was Table Science and in the scale of sciences that is at least 7 places lower than Rocket Science. Somewhere below Lawn-Mower Science, but higher than Making-Toast Science. What they had done was assemble it upside down and tighten everything up full and then flip it over onto its feet (that is rather less acrobatic than it sounds). Rather than loosely getting the pieces together upside down, turning it over, getting it sound, and then tightening everything up.  And they are the professionals!? Dickheads!  It's not like it took me long to sort, but I'd paid thirty-five fucking quid for the privilege of redoing part of their job.

In future I think I'll insist on assembling things myself even if it is included in the price.  It's not like I'm a bloody joiner or whatnot. I just have an ounce of common sense. And in this instance that was about a million times more than the so called professionals.