Day 446 - I Crap on Ikea

Sorry for another late and short post, but I have a good reason today: a wall collapsed at home.

I exaggerate a little bit, but let me backtrack. About two weeks ago, Sony had this great Holiday Sale where you got an additional 15% to 25% off the employee price. The electronic geek I am, I priced together a new sound system for home. Ever since I got a blu-ray player, I've been secretly longing for a new receiver and speakers. And by secretly, I mean whining and complaining about it to Lisa for the past ten months.

Lo and behold, the sound package I put together was a terrific deal. If you compared the employee cost to a Circuit City or Best Buy cost, I would save around 60%! I thought before spending the money, I should pass it by the wife. So I explained to Lisa how great a deal this would be and it would be something we could enjoy for years to come. Lisa said no. So of course I bought it anyways. I figured if Lisa got mad at me, I could always use my new stereo system to overpower her screaming.

One thing I needed to do before my order arrived was to install some shelving on the wall behind our television. The center speaker would be too heavy to hang, so I needed a shelf to put it on. Last weekend I went to Ikea and bought a couple of black floating shelves. These shelves were pretty easy to install, but my cordless electrical drill was dead. So instead of waiting an hour to let the drill charge up, I ended up impatiently using the drill for a minute until it died. Then I would let it charge for 5 minutes. Drill for a minute. Charge for 5 minutes. And on and on. It was pretty stupid of me, but sometimes I'm a dumbass.

Which brings us to today. All of my sound equipment arrived today. After brushing the kids' teeth, I anxiously opened the boxes and began to assemble all of my sexy Sony toys. I grabbed the center speaker and placed it on the floating shelf. As I tried to insert the speaker wire into the back of the speaker, the floating shelf collapsed! I grabbed the speaker, but everything else on the shelf fell. The shelf didn't fall all the way to the ground, but it hit these little lights we have behind the television and shattered the glass all over the floor.

The kids were watching me in awe. They never heard such words come from Daddy's mouth before. Words that Crazy Grandma Ichikawa knows how to spell. With the speaker in one hand, the shelf in the other hand, and glass around my feet, Lisa showed great awareness of her surroundings and asked me with great insight, "Wow....did the shelf fall?"

It took several hours after the kids fell asleep to clean the aftermath, fix the shelf, and install the new sound system. At least the shelf fell down on me rather than the kids. Which reminds me...I should really double check the shelves I put up in the kid's room. I don't know how much longer it will hold up the bowling balls above their cribs...