IKEA

I commented to the Mom the other day how everytime I watch "House Hunters International" all of the European apartment dwellers have the same furniture from Ikea, most prevelantly, the infamous Poang chair. When I first moved to New York City after graduating from law school the Mom and I hit up Ikea in Elizabeth and I can recall vividly all of the furniture assembly which took place afterwards. That came back to me swiftly this evening as I worked to assemble the Gulliver table and chair set for Miss B and the Grogsby children's picnic table. Can I just tell you, in the little brochure with assembly instructions for the Gulliver's table, IKEA has the nerve to incorporate a drawing of a crescent wrench as one of the tools you'll need. Of course the size of the bolt you're working with? less than half an inch. Crescent wrench? Not really working. Instead, luckily, a troll through the tool bag unearthed an unmarked static "wrench" which just happened to have one wrench head that fit the bolts on the Gulliver table perfectly. It was clearly a furniture assembly tool from a prior Ikea furniture incarnation. The moral of this story? Always keep the little tools they give you, you'll never know when they'll come in handy for those days when they choose not to enclose any useful tools.