No tools required

I wanted to get Dale a really good gift.

He said he wanted a Skil Saw, and I got him one, but I wanted to get him something else. Something he would like that he didn't ask for.

I had no clue what to get, so I asked his best friend Mike and he suggested a grill. What a great idea I thought. He needed a new grill. His old one was falling apart.

I went to Home Depot first and then Lowes to check out the inventory. Lowes had a nice gas grill. It was smaller than his old one, but very nice and in my price range. I decided to purchase it unassembled because I wasn't sure it would fit in my jeep, and, besides, the box said "No tools required."

How hard could that be?

I didn't get around to assembling it until the last minute. It was Thursday afternoon and the kids were going to David's. I had to assemble it now because I would be with Dale on Thursday and Friday and we had planned to exchange gifts on Saturday.

So it was 4:30 on Thursday afternoon and I had to leave to take the kids to David's at 5:40. That should be enough time to assemble the grill I thought.

I dragged the box into the living room (it was very heavy) and proceeded to unpack the pieces... pulling off cardboard and plastic and tossing it to the side. After I got all the pieces unloaded, it looked like a cardboard factory had exploded in my living room.

I was beginning to have doubts assembling this thing. I didn't realize there would be so many pieces. Then I saw the 2 bags containing all the screws, bolts, washers, etc. There must have been 100 of them.

I stared at the instructions in disbelief. What have I done? But I only had about 45 more minutes to spend before having to leave.

I set about trying to assemble the first 2 pieces and couldn't. I got half of it done but the other half wouldn't line up. In the meantime, the kids had taken over the box that everything came in and were in the process of fighting about who was gonna get inside.

By the time 5:40 rolled around, I was completely stressed out and had accomplished nothing. I couldn't even get past instruction #1. I decided to pack everything back into the box and take it back. I called Lowes and explained my problem to Brian, who said to just bring it back.

After spending another 5 minutes trying to get the kids out of the box, I began the process of trying to put all the pieces BACK into the box. I managed to get them back in, but it was nowhere near the same way they came out.

And, in the rush to get the car loaded and the kids out of the house, I forgot to bring the receipt. The guys at Lowe's were terrific, however. They took my box of parts and sent it back to be assembled and let me pick one from the inventory they had out front.... and they did it all so that no receipt was required. Thank goodness for that!

I took the grill over to Dale's Friday morning after he had left for work and set it next to his deck hoping that he would not notice it. He didn't. Then I wrapped up a note telling him to go look out his back deck. I gave it to him last night and he liked it, so it was all worth it.

Lessons learned: 1) NEVER buy anything like that unassembled; 2) If I ever do, NEVER wait until the last minute to assemble it.