Flatpack Frustration

 

1.

 

The boxes arrived. She emptied out the contents and scrabbled around for the instructions. Upon finding them, since her Arabic was not up to scratch, she abandoned them - or more specifically, she scrunched them up into a ball and tossed them into the neighbour’s yard, whereupon they were pounced upon by the neighbour’s Pomeranian and viciously murderized - so in entertaining said canine for a minute or two, they at least served some useful purpose.

 

She picked up a small plank of wood and examined it. Printed at one end, so faintly that she had to use forensic fingerprint powder to discern it, was the letter ‘A.’ At the other end was ‘B.’ So at least that made sense. What didn’t make sense was what the ‘A’ and the ‘B’ referred to. She picked up another plank of wood with numbers on it and another with what she presumed were High Valyrian symbols.

 

“Here goes nothing,” she said, as she started sticking together bits of wood with glue and nails.

 

“What are you doing?,” said Hubby, when he came home from work.

 

“Making us a new garden patio set.”

 

“Then why does it look like a Victorian time machine?”

 

“Did I say, ‘garden patio set’? I meant, ‘Victorian time machine’.”

 

“OK. I’m off to have a shower.”

 

“Don’t trip over the alien artefacts on your way up.”

 

“What alie-? Oh...”

 

The alien artifacts in question, along with the flatpack Victorian time machine, had arrived that morning, just after Hubby had left for work, when she was trying out her new purple sparkly body paint. The postie got a bit of a shock, as she normally wore tangerine sparkly body paint, but she fancied a change.

 

“Do you realise you are naked, Mrs Cantaloupe?,” asked the postie, as she signed the delivery form.

 

“Oh gosh, I’m so embarrassed,” she said, as she quickly reattached her dandelion leaf nipple tassels.

 

“Don’t worry, I’ve seen worse,” said the postie, in a vain attempt at reassurance - although in truth, he had no problem with seeing Mrs Cantaloupe in the altogether, as he had a bit of a thing for her. He was a little put off by the duck’s feet dangling from her ears, however.

 

When she had finished signing the delivery form, the postie said, “Can I just get a picture of you for my, um, scrapbook?”

 

“What scrapbook?,” said Mrs Cantaloupe.

 

“It is a, um, requirement of all postal workers to keep a scrapbook of all the people on their round.”

 

“Since when?”

 

“Since, um, this morning.”

 

“Sounds reasonable. Can I pose with one of my alien artifacts?”

 

“Yes, but could please you remove the duck’s feet from your ears?”

 

“Why?”

 

“Anything water fowl related is against postal service regulations.”

 

“Okee-doke,” said Mrs Cantaloupe, who then leaned against the door frame, balancing the largest and slimiest of her alien artifacts on her head.

 

“Perfect,” said the postie, as he took a few shots with his Nikon D3400.

 

“That’s a nice a camera,” said Mrs Cantaloupe.

 

“What, this old thing?,” said the postie. “I just found it by the side of the road, along with a PlayStation 4, a bag of rusty spanners and a pterodactyl egg.”

 

“Are you planning on using the pterodactyl egg?”

 

“No, I thought I’d sell it on eBay.”

 

“Swap it for a flatpack Victorian time machine?”

 

“Done!”

 

 

 

2.

 

When he had finished his round, the postie (who liked to call himself Jeremiah Vandermonde the Third, although his actual name was Sally) went home, printed the pics of Mrs Cantaloupe and all the other people on his round, stuck them into his scrapbook, then laid out the pieces of the flatpack Victorian time machine on his living room floor. His pet red-footed tortoise, Trevor, dashed over and gave the pile of wood and other bits a sniff, then returned to his origami.

 

“How’s it coming along, Trevor?,” said Sally.

 

It never failed to bemuse Trevor how Sally persisted in attempting to engage him in conversation, considering he was a reptile of South American descent, who didn’t speak a word of English. Nevertheless Trevor snorted a vague acknowledgement of Sally’s query and continued with his ‘Dancing Crow’ folded paper masterpiece.

 

The thing with flatpack furniture and whatnot is that if you move it more than one inch from the origin of its construction, it completely falls apart. Unfortunately this meant that, while Mrs Cantaloupe had almost finished building her Victorian time machine, Sally had to start afresh. Fortuitously, however, Trevor the red-footed tortoise was good friends with Patrick the Pomeranian, who lived next door to Mrs Cantaloupe and who had just brought in the crumpled up flatpack instructions, to show his bestest pal Trevor how clever he was at murderizing it. And Sally had just learned Arabic on the Internet. So that was good.

 

Sally finished constructing the Victorian time machine in no time.

 

He then decided to move it one-and-a-half inches closer to the wall.

 

It completely fell apart.

 

He took out his blowtorch and was about to destroy the ex-Victorian time machine with fire, when the doorbell rang.

 

“Hello, Mrs Cantaloupe,” said Sally to the ringer of the doorbell.

 

“Hello, Jeremiah,” said Mrs Cantaloupe (who was currently dressed in the more socially acceptable attire of Dr Who onesie, sombrero and flip flops). “I wonder if you could help me with something...?”

 

“Certainly, Mrs Cantaloupe, how may I be of service?”

 

“My husband is a berk.”

 

“And how may I, um, assist you with that?”

 

“I want to go back in time to the day we first met.”

 

“When was that?”

 

“It was during the alien invasion of 2009. I rescued him from the slimy yet surprisingly fragrant clutches of a skwark. I wish to reverse this turn of events.”

 

“Can’t you just divorce him?”

 

“Too much hassle.”

 

“Fair enough. Please come in, Mrs Cantaloupe...”

 

Mrs Cantaloupe did so.

 

“Although I must warn you,” continued Jeremiah/Sally, as he led her through to the living room, “that the time machine your wish to make use of is... oh...”

 

He was somewhat surprised to find Trevor, his pet red-footed tortoise, looking well pleased with himself, before the pristinely reconstructed Victorian time machine, which was positioned one-and-a-half inches closer to the wall than originally.

 

Patrick the Pomerian was licking his testacles.

 

 

 

3.

 

Mrs Cantaloupe went back in time, neglected to rescue her husband-to-be from the skwark, then returned to the present day and gave Jeremiah a kiss, by way of a demonstration of gratitude for the loan of the time machine.

 

“Will you marry me?,” asked Jeremiah.

 

“I would never marry a postman,” said the ex-Mrs Cantaloupe.

 

And that was that.

 

[ coming soon... further adventures of Trevor and Patrick! ]