They Don’t Them Build Like They Used to…

When my mother built the new house, I remember the fun of going to the furniture store.  There were only two in town.  We went to the high-end store, which meant not all the furniture was made of pine.  I was about seven.  Mama picked out a few pieces (money was an issue), good solid pieces.  This furniture came when the house was finished.  The men brought in each piece with care.  All the furniture was put together and fit in the spaces just right.

I married my wife because I loved her.  The fact that her father owned a furniture store didn’t hurt.  Over the years, I have absorbed some knowledge of the furniture business.  My father-in-law decried imports.  I can still hear him say, “This ain’t nothing but a cheap piece made in China.  It will fall apart in a month and be thrown in a ditch somewhere.”  In his opinion, if it didn’t come from High Point, NC, it wasn’t worth having.

These days, most furniture is made overseas.  I don’t know about the economics, but I understand the difference.  Instead of men delivering furniture to my house, now the UPS man brings a box.  When I open the box, out spills a hundred pieces, a large puzzle that I am to put together.  The instructions are all diagrams and no words.  I am convinced in China, there is a regular gathering of industrial engineers who laugh at how they drew the instructions, visualizing an American male trying to put in screws and cams. 

When I put together furniture like this, I fear two things: first, I will run out of screws, cams, or bolts.  The second: I will have leftover screws, cams, and bolts.

I have searched for thirty minutes for a piece labeled “10,” only to discover there is no piece labeled “10.”  The print was so small I misread the instructions.  I have been frustrated that I am to look for the piece labeled “LR” and find that piece after an hour of looking.  It turned out “LR” was hidden under another piece, and you could only find the label if you took the assembly apart.

I am also convinced that the Chinese lie to us.  One piece I put together clearly said, “Takes 1 hour to assemble.”  They lied.  Two hours later, I had it almost put together and had one last major piece to add.  It was then that I realized in Step 2 that I put a piece in backward.  I had to take it all apart, put the piece in correctly, and spend two hours putting it back together.  The dog learned new vocabulary words that night.

The last piece of furniture I put together was a nightmare.  It took Gina and I working together for three hours to assemble it.  To finish it, we had to lay it on the floor.  When I stood it up, the bottom piece began to separate from the top.  The whole thing began to wobble.  As I attempted to move it to the place we intended, screws began to pull away from the pressboard, cams began to come loose, and the back fell off.  We took the top off, and I had Gina hold the bottom while I tried to fix it.  When I tried to reattach the top and bottom, it leaned precariously.  A gap opened between the side and the bottom drawer.  When I stepped back, it looked like something my grandson would build out of his wooden blocks.

Gina thought maybe we should return it.  I wanted to burn it.  But I think a few brackets from the hardware store might salvage it.  Being an American male, I think I can fix what was poorly designed. 

Through this whole process, I could hear my father-in-law’s voice: “They just don’t make them like they used to…”

It is easy to forget before Jesus was a rabbi, he was a carpenter.  He knew about building things.    

Jesus told us a story about people who build quick and cheap things not meant to last.  He said it is like building a house on the sand.  It’s fine for a while, but a storm will come, and it will not stand.  Like my cabinet, people build a life that is not strong enough to persevere, to stand in the storm that surely comes to us all.

Jesus then told about a man who built his house on the rock.  It is harder to build on the rock than the sand.  There is a lot of extra sweat.  It takes more time.  But when the storm comes, it stands.  People who build their lives on the rock of Jesus, on his teaching, on his values, they come through the storm.

After the storm, I wonder if people walked by the wreckage of the life built on the sand and said, “You know, they don’t build them like they used to…”