Who stops reading the directions to something halfway through? Who does that kind of thing? (You already know it's me, don't you?) Who sometimes chooses not to read the directions at all? Why would someone do that, when there they are, all written out for you, in neat steps, numbered and everything, occasionally with corresponding pictures for each step? What good could come of ignoring the instructions?
I don't really have any good answers for any of the above questions, other than: Me; me again; you do know that already; yep, moi; because they're tedious and long and not very exciting; generally none, but occasionally I get lucky and things work out just fine.
I told you they weren't good answers.
Several times recently I have noticed my own predisposition to, shall I say, disregard written instructions that come inside packaging. One turned out perfectly; the other ended up fine, but with some added inconvenience and the realization that this is not a trait I should pass on to my children.
Round One:
I bought an office-type chair for our kitchen computer last week. It came in a GIANT box that was so heavy I had to drag it out of the back of my van and push it across the garage floor to a space where I could open it up and lay out all of the parts. It was half-assembled. And half not, obviously. Once I had all the parts sprawled out in front of me, I immediately went to work putting the casters on what looked to me to be the very heavy and unwieldy bottom half of the chair.
Now stop for a moment. I want you to assess, right here and now, what kind of a person you are. Are you (1) annoyed with me because you noticed that I hadn't even opened up the directions and was putting things together without being absolutely sure of what I was doing or; (2) super impressed with me because I used the word casters instead of "rolling wheels with a part sticking up out of them".
If you chose number one, then you are clearly not a person who does any of the things I specified in the first paragraph of this little post. And you probably read through the entire set of directions before even starting. And assemble all the tools needed before proceeding to step one. And empty out all of the little baggies of screws and count to make sure you have the correct number of everything.
Damn you. I want to be like you. I really do. But round about half a page into things I just get kind of bored. Okay, not bored. More like anxious. I want it to be done. Move it along, already! If I can even remotely see what direction the directions are taking, I will go rogue.
Me and Sarah Palin. We've got that in common.
If you happened to choose number two because of my impressive use of the highly technical term "casters", then you probably go rogue as well. And it likely did not bother you at all, if you even noticed, that I was putting the casters on a chair part that I wasn't even absolutely sure was the right one. The way I look at it, and I'm thinking you look at it this way as well, if the casters won't go on, then they obviously don't go there. At which point I will, reluctantly, consult the instructions. No harm, no foul. The casters went on fine, by the way.
Admittedly, putting this chair together was not that difficult of a task. As I mentioned, it was partially assembled, and it really didn't take a rocket scientist to figure the rest out. It came with its own tools, turns out all the parts were there in their correct numbers, and it's a chair--I pretty much knew exactly what it was supposed to look like when it was done. There was no great mystery to it--no internal parts, no moving mechanisms, no connecting of wires.
Still, I'm proud of myself for being able to put the thing together (without the directions).
Round Two:
My daughter Olivia, who is fourteen, woke up this morning with a bit of a head cold. Stuffy nose, dry throat kind of thing. Last year when she had the same type of symptoms and was at her grandma's house, her grandma introduced her to the netty pot.
For those of you who do not know what this is (and I'm guessing that's all of you), it's a tiny, plastic teapot. You put a cup of warm water into it, along with a small packet of some sinus-clearing powder, put the lid on, shake it up and, stay with me here, while tilting your head sideways over a sink, you pour the contents of the pot into the top nostril and keep pouring until it starts coming out the bottom nostril. Seriously.
It's supposed to clear up your sinuses immediately, and my daughter thinks it is, in her exact words, "the greatest invention ever on earth!"
I have never used a netty pot. So today, when Olivia had me pick one up at the store for her and asked me to help her use it, I did have to consult the instructions. We opened the package. I began reading each step to Olivia and she did the actual set up. We got to step three, which was the actual "head tilting over the sink" part, and I read where it said to pour only half of the solution from the netty pot through your nose.
She did that perfectly. She said it felt great. The girl loves her netty pot!
And then I told her she should wash the pot thoroughly with warm soapy water so as not to have any germs left on it. She washed it.
After she had the whole thing put into its box and was about to put the instructions inside as well, she said to me, "Well, I guess we skipped step five, which was to use the other half of the liquid for the other nostril. I wondered why we only used half of the solution!"
Yes, I had stopped reading the directions halfway through. I don't know why. I have no good explanation for it. It did occur to me, as well, that it was strange that we were only using half of what was in the netty pot. I guess I thought that if the stuff is going in one nostril and out the other, it's getting everywhere it needs to go. I was wrong. So my poor daughter had to start again and make another full pot of solution and do the other side.
At that point I realized that reading directions--thoroughly and completely--is something I should be teaching my kids to do. It's important to do things right and to do things safely, especially when your health is concerned.
Round Three:
Now, there is a Round Three. Round Three, though, is somewhat hypothetical. I have a file--an actual, existing file folder, full of EVERY SINGLE manual to EVERY SINGLE appliance/machine/computer/phone/whatever we have ever bought. It's all there. Waiting to be read.
I'm pretty sure that my iPhone probably does WAY more than I know it does. I've read the manual. Okay, most of the manual. Okay, some of the manual.
I think my washing machine probably does more than I realize. And my dryer. And my dishwasher. I'm SURE my dishwasher could probably clean things way better than it actually does. If only I would read the directions. Oven? Probably has that awesome "auto-set" feature where you can set it to turn on at any time at any temperature to cook your food. That would be awesome. I would totally use that feature.
House alarm? Yeah, I think if I committed to read the entire booklet all the way through, I'd be able to figure out how to set it so that I don't have to sprint through the house to turn it off every time I get home.
So I pledge to take the directions out of the box from now on. I will read through them--completely and in order. I will assemble my tools. I will count my items. I will dismiss my extreme desire to have something in common with Sarah Palin and I will not go rogue.
At least not when the kids are around.
