That would be what I am right around now... screwed.

And it's all mostly thanks to Ikea.

You see, it's now 3:50 AM on the east coast of the U.S., and as we are speaking, my sister is hurtling through the sky at... well, I'm too tired/lazy to know or look up how fast those South African Scareways planes fly across the Atlantic.

In any case, she'll be here in just a few hours, and I AM STILL PUTTING HER BEDROOM FURNITURE TOGETHER!

Oh, damn those Swedes and their Swedish efficiency! (I don't think I have Swedes among my three/four or now sometimes five (FIVE!) readers, but if I do... my gross generalisation excludes YOU of course!)

"Well, Red", I hear you murmur. "Why are you still putting her furniture together at this late stage?"

Oh, my dear readers, how little ye seem to recall of my awful habits! Don't you remember that I was born two weeks early (on this very day, in fact) and that I've since tried my damnest to catch up on all that leisure time in the womb that I'd missed out on by being 14 days early?

Well, I still haven't caught up on the lost sleep, that's why I might seem a bit slow to the rest of the world.

Anyway, back to those Swedes and their proudest export: their Ikea stores and its chirpy, do-it-yourself wares.

I've never claimed to like DIY projects. How-to books, yes, but that's entirely different.

Now look, I'll admit that I'm no novice to Ikea's furniture. I've been on a first-name basis with a few chairs named Jors (or was it Hork? I forget. Besides, after a while they all blur together in one's memory. A bit like ex-boyfriends, I suppose. Although I'll be quick to assure you that some of Ikea's chairs have more personality and spunk than a few of those boyfriends ever had!)

But still, tonight a friend and I were almost defeated by a bed named Malm. So we've decided that the Swedes definitely need more sun. They MUST be deprived of much needed oxygen or some essential vitamins during their dark, long winters.

Why else would they insist on explaining how you should put their furniture together by printing a manual without a single word in it? (Well, no words except for the name of your particular purchase. I think they're very proud of the fact that they pay someone to name their furniture.) Seriously, their instruction booklets are like the printed equivalent of charades. That is, if you are playing charades and you are the only sober person in the room.

I'll admit that they do a good job in their pictorial instructions, because most of the time it's relatively easy to decipher. But this time I was almost stumped, courtesy of two little pictures. One picture showed you the correct way of putting some parts together. Right next to it was the picture with the big X through it, telling you how NOT to put it together under any circumstances!

It looked EXACTLY the same as the other picture. (I'll provide evidence a bit later.)

Anyway, thanks to my very clever and capable friend, Malm is now standing, waiting patiently to provide comfort and rest to my jet-lagged sister.

And I'm happy to report that I don't have a single screw loose anymore!

Which is great news, especially considering that I'm older today than I have EVER been before.