A Long Shelf-life - Simon Kent - Moves In, Tools Up and Turns On
Shelving is a grave and for the most part unspoken ritual between father and son which must be undertaken before a full claim to adulthood can be made. You aren't a real man until you have screwed your first set of metal uprights to the wall and slotted in the adjustable shelving brackets.
I am pleased to announce I have now passed this mark. A set of shelves from floor to ceiling mark my advancement and, I hope, acceptance into the adult world although I shall only be certain of the latter when the shelves, laden with the full compliment of books and files have remained steadfast over a longer period of time than two days.
The ritual begins with the patriarch presenting the young initiate with the necessary equipment by way of introduction to the general concept of DIY. At the very least this means a screwdriver. At most the full works: electric drill with as many attachments as any man can handle, full colour 'How to Drill" book or even a subscription to a magazine with free ring binder, issue 2 free with issue 1, and building into a complete library on how to improve your home over 24 fortnightly sections.
Research among my contemporaries has revealed drills are always passed on down the male side of the family whether overtly stated as a gift or simply on indefinite loan. Even the friend whose father is completely inept at the discipline still reveres his Black and Decker with the only drill bit not to have been snapped off or burnt out through years of malpractice. Females have to make a definite decision and buy their own - passive acceptance can lead to identity crises later in life. Another friend was rather distraught that he'd received nothing in the way of electrical equipment and had had to borrow a friend's drill. He was adopted and he's now worried that he doesn't have the shelfish gene.
Someone else recently aspired to the dizzy heights of buying their own drill. This is a clearly a sign of brooding - initiating the process whereby he will have DIY appliances to pass on to his sons. He's well prepared for the responsibility and it's heart breaking to see the pride in his eyes which will never be fulfilled unless he develops a more attractive personality.
Drills are not useful every day of your life and they are certainly not the kind of thing which impress partners of the opposite sex (my research has yet to discover the place of drills in homosexual relationships). Partners are principally concerned with the end result of using the equipment, whereas contemporaries express interest in speeds, reverse speeds, cordlessness, safety features and all round power whether or not you've ever actually used them. There's nothing quite so disappointing as a drill which has only two speeds - they present little, if any chance for male bonding to occur.
My dad gave me a ratchet screwdriver when I took up residency in my last flat. Some may regard this as being inadequately tooled up and admittedly I didn't actually use the implement for putting up shelves. My dad did that. Not because I didn't want to - it was just a job ascribed to him while I hoovered. (Freud would have something to say about this.)
In my last flat I did put up a set of free-standing garage shelves to hold books in the lounge. This is a sort of half-way house: One up from bricks and planks of wood which score nil on the permanency register but earn bonus marks for ingenuity, resourcefulness and sheer brute strength during assemblage.
Free-standing constructions, however, do not have the same sense of permanency - or at least claim to permanency. They do not stand (or fall) on the strength of their attachment to the wall. The deduction being that while you are able to stand on your own two feet you do not have any claim on permanent fixtures in terms of real estate. When you move on to your next home permanent shelves stay behind - a mark of your territory. It's a wonder there's any wall space left in flats and houses over a certain age.
Anyway, new flat, new responsibilities. New walls. Very new walls. Very new plaster board walls. Whoever invented plaster-board was clearly more concerned with the aesthetic qualities and spatial advantages afforded by the introduction of a wall rather than whether a set of ceiling to floor shelves would be happily screwed to them. Plaster board walls do increase the general drilling-into-walls thrill of wondering if you're about to hit something which you had no idea was there (electricity, water, oil etc.). There's this heart-stopping moment when the drill gets through to the other side and you're convinced your neighbours are now sat around the dinner table, mid-mouthful, starring at the rotating drill bit which has just come through their 16th century tapestry wall hanging.
I apologise openly now to my landlord for the set of six unused holes in his wall. I will buy some polyfiller soon and hope I can cover the holes where the wall plugs have become half-wedged in. A friend of mine has since told me the fable of the spring loaded wall plug featuring two metal prongs which flip out when they reach the other side of the plasterboard, thus providing a sound fixture - give or take the occasional disaster when huge clumps of plaster board have been ripped out due to over zealous book stacking.
"They do work", my friend tells me. "I've got some upstairs and they're fine. Not going anywhere and there's a fair bit of weight on them as well." I hope he's right - he's getting married in August.