Nuts and Bolts - Parte una

After seeing me go through another year of waistline increase my wife decided it was time I do something about it. So I have been told I should be working out everyday and eating healthy. Those were among the other New Year resolutions she took for me. So we decided to buy a treadmill and fill up our already overflowing apartment. After very less consideration we decided the guest room had too much space anyway. The guests can hop over the treadmill and land on the bed which is btw so close to the wall that you can actually smell the paint at night. Well, we bought it last week and brought it home on our friend’s newly purchased SUV (he also helped me carry it, poor dude).

So it was lying there for a day and I figured there are only so many of guilt bombs a man can take. Guilt bombs, aka wife-giving-you-the-stare are what that get thrown at you when you were supposed to do something but you spent sitting on the couch watching football instead.

Ok, I took it out of the box and stared at it for a few minutes. The damn thing weighed over 100 pounds. Holy crap! I need to be healthy to put this thing together. Well, I have to do it anyway so I started…

So I opened the instructions and it says “DO NOT CUT STRAPS”. Straps? What the hell are straps? Well, there was a yellow rope-thingy that I had cut. Could that be the strap? Maybe…Fine. Moving on. My wife decided we should be facing the window while jogging on the treadmill. Great. I love the scenery too but now we have to turn it around. So we turn it around. Done. Lemonade please!

Instructions are very well written – insert metal cast extension into metal cast on the left. Repeat on right. Sounds so easy. If the damn screw fits perfectly yes but this one took little bit of tweaking. Argh! Done. Right side done. I already hate this treadmill. Imagine working out during my precious ass-on-couch time. Oh well…there are bigger tragedies in life. I can’t think of anything right away but there are. J So done with 2 instructions and now the platform had two metal hands fitted on both sides to support the console (yes you have to picture a treadmill at this time if you haven’t done it already). My wife who decided it was a good time to review the instructions we have completed so far, found out we had screwed up. The damn bolt which we screwed in with great difficulty had to really go in the back and not the front. What? We have to loosen what I tightened like there is no tomorrow? Alright…you gotto do what you gotto do. Done. Phew!

Now the console…you might think that it should be easy but only if the freaking console would be properly aligned to the metal rods. They are but only once you screw all them half way in. They had so generously left that out of the instructions. So after much cursing and fist-thro-air(can’t do fist through wall) we got the console in. It was 11pm. Next instruction – screw the handle bars to the sides of the console. Wait a minute. Those bolts had to go in the back which means we have to remove the bolt that was already swapped once. Holy Canoli…is this a joke? Again?

Alright I call it a night. My wife agrees since she too had done considerable amount of work to get this freaking thing assembled. So there it stays staring at us with its wrongly fitted bolts and nuts. As I return to home today I am picturing myself going through some more nuts and bolts tonight. Maybe it would turn out better. Maybe not. All I hope is I will be done tonight and can start working out tomorrow. Yeah, that is what I am looking forward to. What has the world come to in this New Year!

To be continued…..