MHA #2 | Friday Evening

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie and Diego had passed a real rite of passage as a long-term, cohabitating couple this evening: they had gone on a date to IKEA.

(And yes, Annie had insisted that this shopping trip was a date. There had been golf pencils and lingonberries involved as well as picking out furniture with umlauts, okay? Date.)

And of course, now, they were back home with their spoils spread out on the floor in the form of a set of unassembled shelves, their associated little pack of hardware, beer (necessary), and the set of directions that Annie was now considering.

"Huh, this is fun. They just use this little cartoon man to tell you what to do," she said, flipping the page over to show Diego. "Probably so they don't have to translate it from Swedish."

Something like that, Annie.

[for the fella!]

Comments

[knife_bender]

"That's a good idea," he agreed. "Especially if you're the one doing the hammering."

She could lift a car so she could also probably be good at that too.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"That's probably a good idea," Annie agreed. "See, the little cartoon man has a buddy, so it seems like they want you to do this with a friend, anyway." Which just made it more of a date, so there. "And then you can handle the screwing."

She heard herself, yes. But how else was she supposed to say that?

[knife_bender]

"It's what I'm good at," he joked, kissing her on the cheek. "Should be wearing my shirt from Wednesday."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"I do like that shirt," Annie had to note, even if she was blushing faintly now. "Playing to your strengths."

He had a lot of strengths, to be fair, but like. Come on.

"Do we have screwdrivers, for that matter?" Did they have any tools?

[knife_bender]

"Don't need them," he said, pulling a knife out of one of his many pockets. You bet your ass he had been wearing his tactical gear to IKEA.

[defenderofdesmoines]

At least Annie was really used to it by now. "How many knives did you take to go furniture shopping?" she asked lightly, leaning over to press an affectionate kiss to his jaw. "A dozen? More?"

She teased, but she had learned since Valentine's Day to appreciate his foresight with how many knives he took on little outings like this. (Besides, an IKEA would actually probably be a really fun place to get into a fight. Annie could do some real damage in their lighting department.)

[knife_bender]

"Around a dozen is probably right," he said with a grin. "We might have been attacked by crazies looking for sales."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Someday," Annie warned, "we're going to go to a concert or something with a metal detector and you're going to end up getting frisked by security."

And Annie would probably laugh.

[knife_bender]

"Could you really picture me at a concert or a football game?" he asked.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Football game, no," Annie admitted. "Even if it would be a ton of fun, because football's kind of great." Spoken like a true small-town Midwesterner. "But we could totally go to a concert! They're fun! And you don't have to talk to anyone!"

See how well she knew him?

[knife_bender]

But there was still people.

"I'll consider it," he said, reaching for the instructions. "I guess we start at the bottom and work our way up?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Probably makes more sense than starting from the top," Annie replied playfully, peering over his shoulder at the directions.

"Oh, hey, be sure not to climb on it," she added very seriously, pointing to the diagram showing the now-distressed little cartoon man pulling the shelves over on himself. "Glad they made sure we knew that."

[knife_bender]

They were the ones who were gonna ignore the weight limit on the hanging accent chair, they might actually need the warning.

"But what if I'm a cat?" he asked. "Because I now know that's a thing."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"At least you were a pretty cute cat?" Annie offered. "I'm gonna say that cats are allowed to climb the shelves, but only if you try not to purposely knock things off."

It seemed to be a thing cats did.

[knife_bender]

"I was cute and I got to scratch Five." All in all not a bad time. "We should probably not put anything too breakable on there, just in case."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"All I did as a bat was get stuck in Kitty's hair." Though at least Rey had gotten to do some sparkly magic or whatever, so that had been cool. "But yeah, agreed. Even if I'd rather you didn't get turned into a cat again anytime soon. You're much cuter as a person."

Though secretly Annie was sort of delighted that for once, something weird had happened to him and not to her.

[knife_bender]

"I'd like to avoid it too." He had missed having opposable thumbs.

"Please tell me these things are labeled," he said, lifting up one of the flimsy particle boards.

[defenderofdesmoines]

"No...." Annie said slowly, referencing the directions. "But it looks like we're supposed to have two?"

She peered at the particle board, and then at a different, slightly thicker component. "Unless this is supposed to be that piece."

This was why it was useful to actually label things.

[knife_bender]

"That doesn't make any sense." None of this made any sense. Why wasn't anything labeled? "Maybe we're missing a piece?"

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Maybe?" Annie agreed skeptically, gingerly poking around in the cardboard to see if they were missing something obvious. "Maybe we should just use this one since it's close? Maybe they're not supposed to be identical?"

No, Annie.

[knife_bender]

He shrugged. "Sure, why not? Particle board is particle board."

[defenderofdesmoines]

Annie moved the definitely-incorrect piece of particle board over to join its not-mate, frowning at the instructions.

"I also don't really know what this means," she added, pointing to a diagram indicating a piece of hardware with a bunch of little symbols next to it, including a triangle with an exclamation point inside it. "Seems important?"

Probably?

[knife_bender]

"I guess?" he said. "Maybe it's the key to everything and this will suddenly make sense."

[defenderofdesmoines]

"Do we even have one?" Annie wondered, starting to consider whether this was really worth it. "I don't see anything that looks like that."

They totally had one. She just hadn't looked that carefully and was unreasonably expecting the drawing to be more accurate than it was.

[knife_bender]

"Is it..." He shuffled some pieces around, probably losing more in the process, before picking up some random object. "This thingy?"