Once upon a time on the far north behind the polar circle there lived a man called Ike. He lived in a small wooden cottage with one hard bed, cranky chair and old table. He was a woodcutter so every day he went to the forest chopping down trees and changing the wood for bread and cheese with guys with big trucks coming to him. Every day this man dreamed about having his own truck and selling wood himself.
“But how can I earn money for a truck when I don’t have even for a new chair!!” he shouted and angrily kicked into a pile of wooden boards and poles. He did that with such a force so all the pieces flew high into the air. After long seconds first pole fell down and jabbed into the ground. Second one jabbed next to it. And then the third and fourth completed a square. Then came a board over them and another and another pieces were falling down and miraculously forming a perfectly looking chair.
“Holy Odin and all saints in Valhalla…I have an idea how to make money!! I will make furniture!!” cheered the poor man and started to look for something to fix the pieces together. He found four nails and a piece of rope. “It will be enough” he said conspiratorily for himself, “More important is the good look”.
And the first success came directly the next day when the truck driver was looking for a present for his mother-in-law and he instantly fell in love with Ike’s new chair. He didn’t even negotiate for a price and paid the man more than he earned in last month.
And there started the Swedish dream. The man kept kicking into poles and boards and with clever saving of connection accessories he was soon able to employ people to kick for him. He bought his first truck and was delivering chairs, tables and beds directly to customer’s homes. That was the biggest furniture factory in the world was born.
After several decades when Ike’s products flooded the world and he was peacefully resting in the wooden coffin which broke right after first dirt hit it at the funeral, there was another man. Let’s call him Jerry.
Jerry moved into a new town in the middle of nowhere. He was a mechanical engineer and had nothing in his room. He also every day dreamed about having his own truck, about his big transport company and about sitting in the truck cabin like Odin in Valhalla. But first he needed a bed to be able to dream his dream also in the night.
He was from a very small country but even there came the glory of Ike’s furniture so there was no wonder that his first steps went right to his shop. After two hours he was already looking at nicely polished metal grey bars and plates and was eager to start assembling. Jerry’s country was maybe small but people from there are famous for their golden hands, so Jerry wasn’t afraid of completing two-men assembly alone.
He bought a loft bed, which actually had the mattress 170 cm above the floor. It consisted of four long legs, a railing on the upper part and four wire frames supporting the mattress. The front and back part he completed on the ground without problems. Some complications came when he had to fix it to lateral frames and put it whole to the vertical position, but he made it.
Then the final part of assembly came. The wire frames. Still full of confidence in Ike’s fine manufacturing he fixed a reinforcement bar in the middle, just casually placed on it all four wire frames and he climbed up with a screwdriver in his teeth to fix them to the rest of the construction.
It was probably too much trust in his golden hands and in good luck which pushed him further and further not taking care about shaking bed under his feet and weird sounds of bending metal. He felt like on thin ice. In spite of moving carefully there came an instant where the ice broke and with a sound of a car crash Jerry landed to the floor together with all the frames.
The reinforcement bar was bended, four screws were destroyed and Jerry was sitting on the ground knowing that his Swedish dream is gone, because he won’t be able to ever trust his bed and have nice dreams. Too much confidence and trust is dangerous.
P.S. What would you do to repair the bed? For example I would buy four new screws, bend the bar back and screw the frames together from below. It might work J
