How To Build A Bookcase

Inspirational post by Tom Hunt

Note: The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of RetoxMagazine.com

How To Build A Bookcase

Today, I duelled with a bookcase. A classic tale of Man vs Technology (it was flat pack, it was made by technology...still counts), Skin vs Wood, Idiot vs Bookcase. My D in GCSE Resistant Materials was finally being put to use, a middle finger to the teachers who told me "you're much more suited for textiles" and "but Tom, you're really really good at textiles". I will tell you how I built my bookcase, and how you can build yours too – if you don't have a bookcase then go and buy one! Or, you know, just wait until you have one and this because relevant.

Things started so well, A was going into B and B was going into C. I was reading the instructions perfectly, like they were written for me and me alone. The screws were going into the holes and the pieces were fitting together, it was beautiful. Then, as the final nail was driven in, I erected (hehe, erect) the bookcase to look at it in all it's wooden glory. Upon evaluation I noticed a slight design flaw. Why would a company, let's just call them 'Smargos', sell something that was so ridiculous. The top was at the bottom, the bottom at the top and the holes that were meant to be on the inside (for the shelves), were on the outside. What a bunch of idiots! I could have come up with a better design than that. I would have put the bottom where the top was meant to be, to create something more aesthetically pleasing. I would have indeed put the holes on the inside to allow more shelves to be attached. I looked back on the instructions and that's when I saw it. The picture that revealed my blunder. The final picture showed the top was indeed at the top and not the bottom, like my masterpiece. The holes were on the inside and not on the outside, like my masterpiece. My pride turned to horror, my achievement vanished in the blink of the eye; I had well and truly screwed up.

I wish I had found the funny side at the time, because there would be a picture, but I was just too embarrassed. I moped about, raided the cupboard for plates full of snacks and like a 13 year old girl after a break up, I got into my Pyjama pants, escaped into the world of film and tried to forget all about it.

As my mood was beginning to rise, not because of the film – it wasn't very good – but because I had time to come to terms with the ridiculousness of the situation I could only think back to inspiration sayings that have helped me get through tough times in the past. Speeches like the one Batman's dad gives him in Batman Begins "And why do we fall Tom? (He says Bruce, but I'm relating it to myself) So we can learn to pick ourselves up". Okay so I didn't fall and graze my knee real bad, but metaphorically I knew what he was saying. He was saying "So you built the bookcase upside down and inside out like a bit of a dickhead. What are you going to do about it, cry like a little baby or get that bookcase built the f*/k right?" Or the speech from Rocky Balboa when Rocky is speaking to his son, Peter from Heroes. "It ain’t about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward".

Okay, so Rocky wasn't exactly speaking about building a bookcase, but I think you can relate it to that. He was saying that it's not about building a bookcase, it's about building a bookcase poorly, not to it's best (or completely wrong) and being able to learn from your mistakes, dismantle it and build it again. That's what life is all about, making mistakes and learning from them. The mistake could be telling a girl yes, that dress does make her look fat, cheating on Words With Friends and getting caught, or building a bookcase upside down and inside out. That's what building a bookcase is really about. It's not built with tools and instructions....okay it is also built with tools and instructions yes, but it's mainly built through determination and persistence. It's about overcoming the odds of having to dismantle it all and starting from the beginning.

And did I manage to build the bookcase in the end?