Some months ago, the shelf in my bedroom closet collapsed. I've dealt with the problem primarily by not opening the closet. But on Tuesday the time was nigh. It was time to fix the problem.

Step one was to go to home depot, which is a terrible terrible store. After about five minutes of hoping for help cutting a new shelf to fit, I got the hapless flooring guy to find me help. It didn't take long before I was on my way with a new shelf, and other shelving accessories like braces and caps, but not the little things that help keep the back of the shelf anchored to the wall. Then I crammed everything into my car and drove home.

The battle was on.

After struggling for a few hours, I got one shelf up and called it a night. Actually, several nights, since I decided to go back to solving the problem by not opening the closet again. Then I went back to Home Depot to buy the pieces I neglected to get the last time. Two visits in one week, joy.

On Saturday, I looked about my box struined room, and decided that I really had no excuse not to finish the project, since it was a day off.

This time, I thought that the closet was going to get the best of me. In retrospect, installing the lower shelf first was a mistake. It made things a tight squeeze. Not fully emptying the closet was probably a mistake too. That made things even tighter. I don't think I ever understood the Amazons before, but as I strained to reach the far recesses of the closet, I finally did. Those damn things get in the way!

There are now many holes in the closet walls, mostly because I suck at measuring while trying not to pitch headlong into the closet. And that I forgot that the top shelf is 6 inches narrower than the bottom one. Whatever, I'll find the spackle later.

I consider the battle won. There were no tears (although I swore much) but I did give sweat and some blood to the effort. Today I wore pants, mostly because if people saw the bruises and scrapes on my legs someone would not be able to resist asking me what happened. And I wouldn't be able to resist saying "sometimes hurting myself is the only way to really feel alive."

This whole experience makes me worry. If I'm supposedly smart and did this poorly, shouldn't a lot of people get killed while attempting a project like this? Or maybe I'm just not home improvement smart. Yeah, that'll help me worry less about humanity...