Would it kill a guy to read instructions? We’ve often wondered. So we confess, we were tickled recently when we overheard a co-worker describing his own disastrous bout with instruction phobia:
“I decided to install a new bathroom medicine chest,” he said. “After removing the old one, one of those metal, flush-mounted things from the `50s, I saw that its replacement, a fancy, wood-trimmed one, was way too large for the opening. So I got out my circular saw with the special masonry/ceramic blade and went to work, making the hole a perfect size. I enlarged the hole by about 50 percent for the new cabinet–which, oddly enough, had the back and sides finished in a nice wood veneer. But as I picked up the new cabinet to mount it, I saw the sticker: `Surface mount only!’
“Luckily, we had plenty of matching tile and grout lying about.”
And luckily, as we’ve heard this guy confess, his incredibly wise and patient wife steers clear until his projects are done.
