By the Numbers: D.I.Y. Edition

1. Pairs of Old Navy jeans ripped, cut, glued, stapled, and stained today. If you ask me, it's an improvement.
   
2. Number of people at last count who are coming to help move me tomorrow. Of the twenty-three people I asked, six have meetings to schedule, five contracted various back, knee and debilitating elbow injuries in the last three days, four are planning to undergo major surgery and six just stared at me. Isn't that strange? That's what I get for moving more than once in a year.
   
3. Number of unbroken fingernails. Considering I've already constructed a baker's rack, microwave cart, entertainment center, bath shelves and an end table, that's actually impressive. Good thing I didn't bother to pay for a manicure this week.
   
4. Number of triple-digit visits to Target in the last three days (ack!). Today they finally strong-armed me into saving ten percent by opening a Target charge, which I need like…well, like another credit card. It's my fault, though. Going in there any more than once in a week is like playing Russian roulette with the checkout people.
   
5. Number of times I had to take apart and put back together the smallest, simplest, most mind-blowingly frustrating microwave cart. That's what I get for thinking I could outsmart the instruction manual. I actually got the whole thing together the third time when I realized all the legs were upside down and unless I wanted the wheels at the top or the baskets inside out, I was going to have to start over. I had to laugh or I would have cried.
   
6. Total hours I spent smirking at all the sexual euphemisms for furniture assembly while I single handedly constructed the world's largest entertainment center. Anyone need a screw? No? Maybe that's because you just have to slide this rod into that hole and bam! The whole thing comes together. At least that's how I'll explain the rug burns on my knees tomorrow. *snicker* Sometimes I'm just an eighteen-year-old guy on the inside.
   
7. Multiplied by a thousand, this is roughly the number of calories I consumed at dinner. I knew I was headed for diet disaster, but it's been so long since I visited my favorite Cuban restaurant and I was so hungry. I'd been lifting heavy boxes and running around all day on nothing but Red Bull and a waffle and I could practically feel my stomach clawing its way through my back. I ordered all my favorites –- arroz con pollo, a bowl of red beans, café con leche and flan -- and barely let the server set the plates on the table before I tore into my meal with all the gusto and delicacy of a rabid hyena. It was not a pretty sight.
   
8. Hours left until I have to go pick up the Uhaul trailer and start loading it. I don't think I have time for bed tonight. I'll probably be a caffeine-powered zombie by the time I return the truck tomorrow night, but it's better than being awakened after two hours of sleep by an alarm clock constructed from a WWII air-raid siren, and probably right in the middle of a beautiful Michael Vartan dream.
   
9. The time, PM, I dropped everything in the middle of a living room littered with the detritus of eleventeen bajillion pieces of furniture in various stages of assembly to ogle George Eads and Gary Dourdan on CSI. I've got my priorities, and although I may not be able to explain them I'll defend them to the death. Or until 9PM on Thursday, whichever comes first.
   
10. New combinations of swear words invented while stepping on wayward nails, dropping screws into itty-bitty little niches and pinching my fingers in a drill. And I still have eight rather large pieces of 'assembly required' furniture on the way. At this rate I'll have to start annexing naughty words from other languages to work into the rotation. Oh wait. I already did that. Merde.