AAAAnd In This Corner.....

I recently purchased an item that had the phrase “Assembly Not Included” proudly proclaimed on the front of the package.  Those three little words screamed at me, and knowing how mechanically inclined I am, made that statement at me with a grin and a slap on the face like a call to a duel.  After that little taunt, I responded with a “Game On!” attitude knowing full good and well that after I walked through that check-out line with the receipt of payment in my hand that I would be setting myself up for failure.  So far, I was right.  After attempting the loading of such, I had already felt defeated due to the weight and length of the item itself.  Product –1: Me—Zilch.  How can I be down for the count on the appetizer when I haven’t even reached the meat and potatoes of the project yet? Some time elapsed as I pushed the reset button to my body and allowed it to reboot.  In laymen’s terms, I became lazy and snoozed through the majority of the afternoon.  Waking up with the haunting reminder that I haven’t started the project as it lied there unopened, was more harassing than the annoying alarm that triggered off every morning.  Clearing the cobwebs out of my brain, I vowed silently to myself that I was going to hogtie this task at hand and have a finished product better than that pictured on the box.  I then criticized my brain for such a sarcastic thought directed toward me.  With the box cut and torn open violently, it was a little reminder of the teasing it dished to me while it was shelved at the store waiting for redemption.  I was feeling the adrenaline pumping.  Wanting to look at the playbook and intercept its devilish attempts of proving me manually incapable, I flipped through the instruction manual.  My first thought was, What! No thank you for purchasing this product!? I can’t buy a box of flipping chicken nuggets without them thanking me on the side of the box for purchasing their food. Then again, how am I supposed to decipher whether they did or not since it’s more bilingual than a group of speakers at the G20 Summit meeting.  I could have called the 1-800 help line and asked one of them, however, I had a feeling that I would have gotten some foreign person on the other end re-wrapping their turban and hardly able to speak English themselves.  How about the “For Espanol, prensa  cinco”? What they really mean is, “If you have come to this country illegally, and don’t quite know the language yet, if at all, but taking tax dollars to feed your anchor baby, then please press 5.”  But I digress.  Who would have thought that official language of AMERICA would not be the first one to choose from in an instruction manual of a product MADE IN THE USA? Do you know how I found this out?  Look at the words that I have just written—upside down.  That’s the way I was to follow the instructions, with the booklet turned upside down.  I’m officially a member of the minority in my own country.  With a few chinks in the armor (slight cuts and bruises) and just about called “out” on a check swing, I finally assembled it and rubbed the success in the box’s face by NOT recycling it.