DIY made me cry.... (Monday, Apr. 11, 2005)

In living memory, there are only a handful of things that have made me cry, I probably shed a tear at the birth of my first son, and when a 20 stone bloke fell on me during 5 a-side football and broke my wrist.

The most recent thing to make me cry was trying to build a childrens play-house, well glorified shed. Yep, DIY made me cry. There are a few things I'm quite good at, and a few things I'm not so good, and one thing I'm absolutely terrible at - anything vaguely DIY. Shelves mysteriously come crashing to the ground at 3am, curtain poles bow in the middle, and as for changing taps on the bath, that's 3 days at the in-laws whilst the water is shut off due to knackered mains pipe.

Anyway, the shed. It was a half price bargain at the local garden centre, and essentially consisted of 7 panels - a floor, 4 sides and 2 roof panels. They just had to be put together with screws and nails. After about an hour of trying to marry up two of the sides, I gave in and told my much troubled wife that they had sent us the wrong bits. Not convinced, she insisted that we go to the garden centre to check. 20 miles later and we're at the garden centre, but ours was the last one so we can't check and are none the wiser. "They must have sent us the right bits" she assures me.

Back at home, and another hour of trying to figure out how these two sides fit together. My wife chips in with "Are you sure they are the right bits?" - "Of course they are!" I say getting more agitated. "Just let me try" she says picking up a roof panel. Well I thought it was a roof panel. In fact the roof panel was what I was currently trying to screw to one of the sides of the shed. So no wonder it didn't fit.

At last, 4 hours in and we have the right sides to the shed. Hooray! Now we can start to motor. First screw. After 10 minutes of trying to screw the first screw in my knuckle starts to bleed where it's being grated on the side - this is when the crying starts. No matter what I try I can't get the damn screw in. Meanwhile, my wife is on the phone to some bloke who will build it for �15 an hour - "it will only take an hour, hour and a half tops" - the humiliation.

Home tonight and there it is, all complete, I bet the bastard didn't even break a sweat. Might have to sabotage it to show my wife what a shoddy job he did, and how I could have done better, "if I had the right tools". Like a decent set of arms for starters, time to join the gym and beef up I think....

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