Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

My new chair arrived and the writerly posterior is now ensconced in unaccustomed and softly cushioned luxury… and loving it. However, I do have a small complaint. Not about the chair itself…oh no, that’s heaven! But…

Call me old fashioned, or possibly delusional, but when I buy furniture, unless it specifies ‘self-assembly’ or bears the dread words ‘flat packed’, I have visions of it being delivered in one piece. I can go with ‘minimal assembly required’. But at what point did ‘easy to install’ equate, in the English language, to either ‘needs to be built from scratch’ or ‘takes two strong men and a bottle of valium to assemble’?

I have no objection to a little doing-it-myself when the occasion arises. I’m not saying I’m much good at it, but things stay up…mostly…when I put them up. It’s just not always a good idea to look too closely at how