Upside-down IKEA dresser

Three weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon, I attempted to put together an IKEA dresser for my daughter Naomi. Because the act of putting together a dresser isn’t the most interesting activity in the world, I switched on Netflix, and started watching a series called The Sinner. I’m a big fan of police procedurals and seen some good ones while completing various projects on my laptop (notice a pattern here?) including Bloodline, Mindhunter, and Unbelievable. The Sinner (season three) promised similar engrossing fare, at first. Detective Harry Ambrose (played by Bill Pullman) starts investigating a car crash and he quickly comes across his suspect. The plot proceeds swimmingly until things get all weird, with Detective Ambrose following the suspect to all kinds of strange places, one where the suspect commits another murder. While watching this, my shelf building project started to get all weird. But I didn’t realize it, following IKEA’s wordless illustrative directions, until I was past the point of no return. I had already pounded in numerous expandable plastic nails and would not be able to take it apart again. At first I was upset. I had just spent five or so hours putting this all together and I would now have to throw out that time along with the dresser. Just as the Netflix offering had gone south when I wanted it to go north, as it were, so had my dresser. But then I saw that the shelves, that I had also assembled, fit in perfectly into the dresser when I turned it upside down, with its legs standing up. My daughter was appalled. But then I had an idea. I bought some pinewood planks from Menards’ and proceeded to nail them to the legs and build a crate on top of the shelf. Voila!

My daughter Naomi’s IKEA dresser.