Big Day In Hooterville

I bought a new push broom today. I know, I lead one of those thrill-a-minute lives where buying a new push broom is actually quite newsy. And pretty exciting. I just hope it doesn’t send Richard over the edge.

You would think that I would have realized that it required some assembly, since the head and the handle were parallel in the packaging, but until I ripped the cardboard off and the head fell to the floor it didn’t really dawn on me that I was going to have to do some construction. But I was ready. I mean how hard could it possibly be to make a push broom ready to use.

Frankly, quite hard. To make this broom fully operational would require a doctorate from a prestigious engineering university. After about a half-hour of struggling, trying one thing, then another, cursing, trying one more stupid idea, then throwing a temper tantrum and calling the broom a horrible name, I glanced down and noticed that there were instructions on the cardboard that had bound the parts together.

Nonchalantly, I reached down and picked up the cardboard. I glanced around in case any of the neighbors could see me. Then I actually read the instructions. I caught myself thinking things like:

“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Sure, sure, I get it. I mean if I would have gotten step one, this step would have been obvious.”
“Gees, I sure am glad I didn’t actually use the tablesaw!”
“Wow, a screwdriver, why didn’t I think of that!”

So, I followed the directions and five minutes later a push broom was born. Now, I can enjoy the screwdriver!