There are spoken words that can strike fear in the heart of even the strongest man. Words like, “It’s the police! Come out with your hands up,” “Congratulations your wife is doing fine and you are the proud father of three baby girls,” and my personal favorite, “This message is from the IRS and we need you to stop in our office so we can discuss your tax returns for 2016, 2017 and 2018.”

Of course, sometimes just a simple notation on a set of instructions indicating “some assembly required” can be equally as terrifying, as I recently learned.

My wife had ordered two swivel chairs from Amazon for our patio.

I wasn’t too concerned because normally with Amazon, I just bring the package in from the porch, open it and take out whatever was ordered. But this package was different. It seemed entirely too small to contain one chair, let alone two.

However, when I picked it up, it seemed as heavy as a compact car and I knew what I assumed would be a quick and easy “Honey Do Project” was about to take an ugly turn.

As I removed the top of the box, my wife peered over my shoulder and asked, “What do you think?”

I replied, “I know it is easy to return items bought on Amazon, but when we take these chair pieces out of this box, we own them because it will be impossible to get them back in the box. Whoever packed this box must have packed for the space shuttle crew on his last job.”

The pieces just fit and were all interlaced like a giant puzzle.

The first step was to sort all the pieces and read the instructions. The instructions were extremely simple, but the project itself was complicated and the instructions contained those dreaded words, “Some assembly required.”

The chairs were well-designed and well-made; each consisted of two arms, one back and one seat, all of which had to be assembled and then installed on the swivel base.

Juggling the four pieces to initially assemble a chair was difficult because if the hardware was tightened on the first two pieces when adding the second set of pieces, the assembly holes on the second set would not line up properly. That meant working with an assembly that was constantly moving and shifting until all hardware was installed, which would have been easier if you had four hands.

It was frustrating and time-consuming and kind of like screwing Jell-O to the wall.

I finally got it accomplished and then came what should have been the easiest part: adding the swivel mechanism, which mounted on the base of the chair.

This mechanism consisted of five separate parts that came preassembled. However, because it did not match the mounting holes on the chair, it was quickly obvious that it had not been assembled properly.

After disassembling and reassembling the mechanism (without instructions), I got the chair assembly complete in what took a much greater time than anticipated and the “some assembly required” indicated.

The chairs are beautiful and very comfortable, but when I told my wife to never buy a vacation cruise from Amazon, she looked puzzled and asked, “Why?” I replied that I would be afraid to arrive at the dock and not find a ship, but rather a pile of material, some hardware, tools, a large bed sheet and a note stating, “some assembly required.”

John Kasun writes from his home in Duncansville, where he keeps his tools handy just in case, but always reads the instructions first just to double check.