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HELP! THE GROMMET'S MISSING! I had a happy Father's Day Eve. I was sipping a tasty Rheinhessen on the back porch when a clattering disturbed my oenophilic reveries. I looked up and, eyes agog, stared blankly as the rest of the family lugged a huge box marked "Gas Grill" into view and dumped it huffing at my feet. (They were huffing; the gas grill huffed later on.) "Happy Father's Day!" they crowed. My ministrations of pleasure and affection amid the hubub of familial excitement soon turned into thoughts of defenestration as I set about assembling my newest toy. Why? Here is a quote from the assembly manual and you'll see why: "Affix hoop (18) to side standards (33) with provided long bolts after first securing hub (4) through axle carrier (12) and side ribs (7). Repeat procedure other side. View illustration." I thought about throwing the instructions away right then and should have, but my wife (referred to in the instruction manual as "helper") is the logical sort who believes her husband ought to "do it right this time." So, I resigned myself to assistance from both manual and spouse and sturdily continued assembling my Father's Day gift. I was distracted in this effort by the cat and the two-year-old who both came curiously close to being killed when we reached the climactic chapter in the instructions -- you know, the one that tells how to "insert Venturi tube into line assembly (25), adjusting inlet valves to 1/8-inch windows while drawing spark line (41) through eyelet." I was also distracted by the not-so-fond recollection of countless witty Sunday magazine insert articles about self-assembly of Christmas bikes, gas grills and household widgets. You know the kind I'm thinking about: some depraved writer who had to send the bike back to the manufacturer for repairs due to his botching the job writes a funny piece in order to recoup his freight expenses. This, by the way, isn't one of those articles. The gas grill works fine. But the episode does bring to mind a couple of my pet theories about kit-making. The first is about the so-called "ease of assembly." What American manufacturers do, I think, is have a group of employees write the instruction manual. The product of their effort is then translated into Japanese or Spanish (depending on where the kit is packed). Then, either a Japanese or Mexican re-translates the manual into English again, prints it and stuffs it in with all of the parts. That's my only explanation for the ponderous and, yes, tortuous nature of instruction manuals. My second theory is this: You can't fault the quality of workmanship if you're the one who did it. So, if the drive chain on your kit-assembled ten speed bike falls off, or if your gas grill blows up in your face, or if your made-at-night-at-home color TV set only works on Channel 1, you only have yourself to blame. For sure you can't blame the wife, kids and cat. Even if they never let you forget about the ten speed color gas grill sitting useless on the back porch.