Kit and Ka-glue-dle

Right now, I’m covered in white glue and seething with anger. Why, you ask? Because—and I should have known better—I bought another miniature kit from Amazon, and this one is a veritable nightmare. It looked so adorable on the website—a 2 story apartment with a four poster bed, a grand piano, vintage accessories INCLUDING a desk made from a cast iron sewing machine base, and best of all—an UNDERWOOD TYPEWRITER. And then the kit came. And once again, the instructions were incomprehensible, having been reverse engineered into English from Chinese.

But the worst part was that EVERYTHING had to be built from scratch. Therein lies the problem. I have never been known for my manual dexterity. I have very large hands and enough arthritis that they just don’t work very well. In order to build this kit, I have to manipulate pieces of balsa wood so thin and tiny that I’ve already broken several parts. LUCKILY…there is white glue to put it all back together. Oh, not the glue that came with the kit—that was dried solid—but good old Lepage’s white glue. I gave up early on trying to be accurate with my glue spurting, and now I just layer it on everywhere. It dries clear, which is the only good thing about it, aside from the fact that it eventually sticks things together. So I glue a bunch of stair treads, hold them in my fingers until they’re fairly stable, and then try to pry my hands off without pulling apart the stuff I’ve just glued. And I’m not always successful, so then it’s back to SQUARE F*CKING ONE. Pardon my language, but the typewriter? The one I was so jazzed about? It’s literally half an inch wide and it took TWENTY-TWO pieces of miniscule balsa wood to construct! You heard me—TWENTY-TWO. And don’t get me even started on the stupid grand piano. I would have given up days ago (and it’s been days…many, many days) but if you know me at all, you know I’m no quitter. I will complete this monstrosity, right down to the ridiculous lamp that requires me to glue 8 pieces of plastic and two pieces of metal together, or my name isn’t Player One. The only thing I refuse to do is the insane wireframed eyeglasses that are supposed to sit on the paper feather that I had to carefully cut out (and then locate once it landed on the kitchen floor, and that was eighteen minutes of my life I’m NEVER getting back), because I can’t even see it with my OWN glasses. I hate it. I hate it so much. But I will glue-fully triumph…and then I will throw it onto our firepit and watch it burn like the hellspawn it is.

In other news, Ilana, my favourite cat, is back living with us while the kids are home. And she continues to be completely adorable, as you can tell from the picture below, and is slowly getting over her fear of Atlas, who loves her SO much that he wants to be near her all the time. Sadly, she does not reciprocate his affection. Still, it’s such a joy every morning when she comes running to see me (and my bag of kitty treats) and lets me pet her to my heart’s content…with my glue-y hands.

40 thoughts on “Kit and Ka-glue-dle”

  3. Please leave a review on Amazon – people deserve to be warned! On the other hand – it makes one realize what awful jobs some Chinese have, assembling things like this. Presumably that’s why, in a moment of leniency, the bosses farmed it out to the future owners…

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  4. Don’t get me started on large-scale model trains. The companies that make them have no issue putting together all the intricate precision internal workings of the trains themselves, yet are totally incapable of gluing anything on the outside that is cosmetic. Ironically, the smaller scale trains come complete. I don’t understand why such a difference exists.

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  5. I was intrigued by the instructions like “with a whirl way” and had so many thoughts about “Instructions of the assembled wood” but that badass wine goblets completely stole my attention. Wine is great but anything you put in that goblet is going to be better. And then I was distracted by Ilana. Her fear of Atlas reminds me of when we brought home a kitten we named Hugo. Our dog Baxter was fascinated and very gentle but Hugo was terrified of him and for three days hissed and spat whenever Baxter came near. After three days Hugo finally flopped down on the kitchen floor as though saying “I surrender!” Baxter sniffed his belly and licked his ears. They were friends after that.

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  7. Do you have a flex-arm lighted magnifying glass? I couldn’t work on my electronic projects without one.
    DWLP is actively hot these days. And still you have time for these hobby time sinks. I remain in awe.

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  9. Oh that made us chuckle!

    My wife (Sue) and I have just got back from clearing out her dad’s house now that he’s in a care home (he’s 94 next week) and it’s taken us MONTHS. Not only did he not want to throw anything away if it was potentially useful (reader, the interesting pieces of wood in the garage and dead flasks and kettles in the attic were not at all useful), he was also a keen model maker. His preferred kits were WW1 & inter-war aircraft in plastic but there were also vintage cars and cardboard ships. He had ALL the gear – scalpel blades, emery paper, tiny metal files, and – most importantly – tweezers. He had so many of the bloody things and it’s a shame we’ve just sent almost all of it to recycling because clearly there’s someone here that would benefit from them 😉

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  10. A gluemare, Suzanne. The photo of it is great though, so you did it! And Ilana is adorable. I was afraid for a while that your miniature condo would have permanently affixed cat hair, but since you didn’t mention that, all is well.

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  14. First of all an adorable picture of the kitty. Second of all, I would never even have started. I have arthritic hands also and I absolutely cannot do any little work like that anymore and it’s very disappointing and frustrating. I think you should ship the whole thing back to the company get your money back, tell them next time they need to give better explanations of the product. Or yes. Fireplace works too.

    Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

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