Making a list, checking it twice

I have a project which I MADE my father and my husband start for me. Yes, I MADE them build me a bookcase. They were not happy. I was looking at the beautiful book case in my grandmother's tiny study. The bookcase runs down one wall and els down the other. It is attached to the ceiling and feels as if it is to the floor, too, however it also has crown molding everywhere so you can't tell at ceiling or base or corners where it is attached at all. An adult could climb the book case and it wouldn't fall over. It has adjustable shelves. It is the only thing in this typical ranch style house that makes it in any way unique from any other Adair home of the 1970s.

Do I need to say the bookcase my husband and father built me was not built to these standards? I wanted down the length of one wall and a little onto another. It is barely five feet long. It is seven and a half feet tall. I am not, otherwise the bookcase that they built is shaped rather like myself, sort of literally, in a rather sloppy hour glass shape. When I went to put shelves into it we discovered the shelves will not be interchangeable because each shelf only has about a one foot area in which it can actually fit at the length it was cut!

I had the shelves cut at the lumber yard using one length taken from the middle of the bookcase, before I had noticed that it was shaped so, er, absurdly. It was just that, since it was built six months ago it has been covered and used as our movie screen. Now, with our study being used as a spare bedroom for an out of country guest, we need to have the books moved around so the "new" bookcase needs to be used. After the shelves have been recut not even a mouse will be encouraged to climb it until I use brackets to attach it to the wall.

As I was placing one of the shelves onto its "adjustable" mounting brackets my father came into the house.

"Who built that crooked monstrosity?"

"You and my dear husband!"

"Will, he must have done all of the measuring for it."

"What would measuring have to do with the wood bending in the middle like that?"

"I don't know, it just does. It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't work with wood."

"It's hard to explain to someone who pretends to work with wood what a bookcase looks like, too, I suppose?"

"Guess when the next time your getting a free bookcase is going to be?"

"Right after the next time I ask for one?"



I don't know why he doesn't stop by more often.