Help, I need somebody.

Don’t be afraid to scream “help”. The universe is always listening and will give you what you need. How I met my dream handyman…

It seems difficult to assemble the cabinet by myself. I wanted somebody to help me, and just as I was thinking about it, my niece lined me and asked for help. A few days later, my niece and the new cabinet arrived.

I took the heavy whiteboard out of the box. The sheer number of screws made me feel a bit anxious, but we started to assemble it. When we finally got them together, a problem occurred.

“Huh? For some reason, only here, this part doesn’t fit.”
I have a bad feeling about this.
And when I tried fitting the back part, it still didn’t seem to fit where it should. If I hammer the nails in there, there’s no going back. There were other parts where the wood was floating, and just as I was about to remove the assembly, there was a popping sound, and the wood around the screws shattered. Fortunately, the place is not visible from the outside.

“Oh my goodness.” I was sweating like waterfalls and had the biggest depression of the year. I gave up trying to assemble it myself and decided to start searching for an assembly service. But if I asked them now, when would they eventually come? I can’t go through the year with it unfinished. It’s against my policy.

When searching for assembly support, I found a service called “Anytimes”. Will anyone be able to come here right now? There was!!! It was possible on the same day. Moreover, most of the people’s profile photos were ”very posed”, but the middle-aged man had a normal smiling picture, which really hit the spot.

I wrote down the proposed dates as “today” and “tomorrow morning”, provided a link to the product and the nearest station, and received a reply immediately.

“I can visit after 7.00 pm.”
I hugged and rejoiced with my niece!

And at 7.05 pm, the repairman arrived!
“I’m so happy that you came so quickly! You have such light feet!”
“When I saw your message, I had just finished work and could be there within half an hour.”
”Have you assembled this type before?”
”Funnily enough I have, many times. You’ve botched it unfortunately but it’s fixable. Leave it to me.”
”Ha-ha-ha. I made a mistake!”
”You’d be better off had you used an electric drill.”

The repairer assembled it speedily without instructions. He pried out the damaged parts, reinforced them with bond, and repaired them with ease!

There was a spot where the white had peeled off, and the repairer even had a white grease pen and painted that spot white to make it less noticeable. IKEA mistake.

It was all done in about 40 minutes! Time to assemble the furniture turned into time to bake the apple pie. Since he came on such short notice, I served him coffee.

“Do you usually work in assembly?’
“Yes, I do. I assemble sets for TV programs and so on. So I disassemble and assemble things every day.”
“Have you liked assembling things since you were a child?”
“I used to make kites and things like that, and I used to improve them so they flew better.”
“Wow, you have a calling!”
“Yes, it is. It’s my calling.”
I love listening to people talking about what they’re good at!

After he left, my niece said, “Hitomi, you are good at talking to people you meet for the first time.”
“If you ask questions about what the person is good at, they enjoy talking about it.”

My demolished mind was repaired in less than an hour, too! Sometimes being in trouble is not a bad thing. Encounters with professionals are fun. I hope next year will be full of such unexpected encounters.