Summary:  A tongue in cheek story of what our favorite family might make of a modern-day purchase.  Inspired by a fun day spent assembling flatpack furniture.  We imagined what the boys would have made of the less than explicit instructions.
Rating:  G  (3,150 words)

The Flatpack!

Author’s Note:  This story was a combined effort by Pat Hirst and Vicki Christian

“Hey, Hoss, gotta delivery for Adam.”  Rafe Johnson called as he pulled into the Ponderosa’s front yard.

Hoss wiped his hands on a piece of rag which was far dirtier than his hands and then rubbed them down his pants legs.  “Mornin’ Rafe.  What’s Adam been a orderin’.”

“Doan’ know but it says 4 packages for Adam Cartwright, Ponderosa Ranch, Virginia City.  My here job is to deliver packages not info’mation.  There’s $5 to pay.”

Hoss sniffed and then held out his hand for the piece of paper and pencil, Rafe was thrusting at him.  “Adam’s up in the north pasture, branding, won’t be back ‘til supper.”

“Well, I ain’t got time to wait.  You gonna pay the $5 or not.”  Rafe grumbled.

Hoss sighed and reached into his pocket and withdrew five rather grubby dollar bills.  “Here you go, Rafe, tho’ I says Adam should be payin’, they’s his packages.”

Rafe took the money and the sheet which Hoss had now signed.  He unloaded 4 boxes and dumped them unceremoniously and with an ominous bang on to the front porch.

Hoss waited until Rafe and his wagon moved off then he examined the boxes.  One about two foot square and very heavy, one slightly smaller but no less weighty, one smaller still and a bit lighter and one very large one maybe four foot by 3 foot and fairly flat.  This was the heaviest of all.  Hoss lifted all of them without effort and carried them one at a time into the living room and set them down behind the sofa.  The biggest one said “desk flatpack” and had a picture of a flimsy looking cupboard.  The others had pictures of things Hoss didn’t recognize, a square box, another box with what looked like a lid, and a yet another box with buttons on the front.

Hoss shrugged, Adam was always buying strange things, so he ignored the boxes and went back to shoeing his horse.  Indeed he completely forgot about them, that was until Pa came home.

“HOSS, HOSS,” Ben yelled from the front porch.

Hoss came out of the barn at his father’s yell and as he approached he noticed Pa was rubbing his right leg rather vigorously.

“Yeah, Pa.”

“What in tarnation are all those boxes.  I darn near broke my neck.”

“Sorry, Pa.  Somethin’ come for Adam.  Looks like a cupboard and such.”  Hoss threw his hands wide as if that explained everything.

“Table…, table, what would your brother want with another cupboard, we’ve got plenty of furniture and you can’t get into his room for bookshelves and desks.”

Hoss shrugged, “Ain’t no tellin’what Adam’s up to.  He keeps things close to his vest, you know that.”

“Hmph… he better have a good explanation.”

“He will, Pa.  Adam always has his reasons.  He’ll be home directly and he’ll tell us.”

Adam rode in with Joe just before supper and was pounced on by Hoss, in the barn, before he had put up his horse.

“You owes me $5.”  Hoss stated.  Feet braced, ready for an argument.

“Evenin’ to you too.”  Adam replied sarcastically.  “Now why, exactly, am I in your debt to the princely sum of $5?”

“Packages.”  Hoss said.  “Packages, what Rafe delivered this afternoon.  Four of ‘em.”

Joe who had been quietly brushing Cochise, looked up with interest.  “What you bought, Adam?”

“It’s a cupboard and some square boxes.”  Hoss spoke before Adam had a chance to.  “Pa says what do you want with more furniture anyhow?  He’s mad atcha.”

“It’s a desk and why is Pa mad at me, I haven’t been here all day?”  Adam queried while filling Sport’s feedbag.

“’Cos he fell over the boxes.”  Hoss explained.

“Whaddya want another desk for, Adam, you got one already?”  Joe joined in.

Adam closed his eyes and gathered his patience together in one big parcel, he was going to need it with these brothers.  “I cannot be responsible for where packages were placed when I was not here.  Pa should look where he’s going.”

Joe cackled, “You gonna tell him that?”

Adam ignored his little brother and turned back to Hoss.  He fished in his vest pocket and extracted a folded, clean, five dollar bill.  “Here’s your money and why I want a desk or what I do with it is my business but if you must know it’s for a new piece of ranch equipment.”

“Equipment?”  Hoss’s eyebrows raised, envisaging scythes, rakes, saws, axes etc, none of which required a desk or even much of a table.

“Yes, equipment to help Pa do his accounts and write his letters and such.”  Adam finished his chores and rubbed his hands together, “Now, if you will excuse me I will go and take a look at my new purchases.”

He headed for the house leaving a mystified Hoss and Joe in the barn.

Adam refused to be drawn on the contents of his mysterious packages until after supper.  He then unpacked them carefully while his father and brothers watched in amazement.  Package number one contained a squareish gray colored box, which Adam called a monitor, number two had more gray items, one very heavy with slots and buttons and one long and flat with letters on tiny buttons, Adam said these were a base unit and a keyboard, the third gray item was again square with more slots and buttons.  Adam said this was a printer.

“Don’t look like them printing presses Dan’s got at the Enterprise.”  Hoss observed.

“Yeah, where do you put the type?” Joe asked lifting a lid which exposed two small black boxes on a metal track.

Adam’s hand came down on his brother’s, “Leave it alone,” he growled.

The final large package contained pieces of what looked liked wood but on closer inspection weren’t of any wood the boys had seen before.

“We got better timber than that right here on the Ponderosa.”  Joe grumbled.

Ben leaned over and picked up a piece that looked like a shelf and examined it closely, “It’s not wood at all, just sawdust compressed and then this coating put on it.  We could do better from our own sawmills.”

Adam, irritated, took the piece from his father.  “I need to read the instructions first, it’s supposed to be easy for two people to put together.”

Ben sat down in his red leather chair and shook his head, he was staying out of this.

Adam glanced up at his brothers, not a great deal to choose from.  “Hoss, you can give me a hand.”

“Hey, what about me?”  Joe whined.

Adam frowned, “Well… alright, but only if you do exactly as I say.”

Ben hid a smile, that would be a first, he thought.

Adam held up the instructions, “See when it’s done it looks like this.”

“Easy as pie,” Joe announced, “It’s just a cupboard.”

“Ah, but it has shelves and a sliding piece inside for the keyboard.”  Adam explained.

Hoss looked at Joe and shrugged.

“Now we layout all the pieces, there should be twelve, and fifteen packs of fittings.”

Hoss had already started examining the pieces, “They all got numbers on ‘em and the packets have got letters.  Should be easy.”

Joe had several pieces leaning against each other already, “See this piece goes here, you can see and this bit is the bottom and this is the top.”

“Wait, Joe, we have to follow the instructions.”  Adam began to read, “Insert 2 pieces, cam A into right side panel 1 and adjust the arrow on cam to point upwards.”

Hoss jingled two small pieces of metal in his hand, “These are A, doan know what a cam is but they got A on the packet.  Cain’t see no arrow though.”

“I got side 1,” Joe waved a fairly large piece of wood around and it’s got two little holes just that size.”

Before Adam could stop them the two were pressing the pieces of metal into the holes.

“We done that, Adam, what’s next?”  Hoss asked.

“Are the arrows pointing upwards?”  Adam tried to see but with a large brother in the way it wasn’t easy.

“I done toldya, I cain’t see no arrows.”  Hoss complained.

Joe peered at the metal, that’s an arrow, look that itty bitty thing there, we got to turn ‘em around.  What’s next then?”

Adam went back to his instructions and continued to read out each stage and tried to supervise his brothers.  Even though Hoss and Joe jumped ahead and did things that weren’t on the instructions or that came later, things went reasonably well until it came to assembling the bigger pieces.

“You got that in the wrong hole, Joe,” Hoss complained, “It’s gotta go here look see on the pichure,” he wrenched the instructions from Adam and pointed at a diagram.

“We ain’t gotta bit that looks like that, we got holes on the other side.”  Joe grumbled.  “You put it on backwards.”

Adam sighed and yanked the instructions out of Hoss’s hands and glared at them both, “If you’d just listen then we wouldn’t have it backwards.”

Hoss went to lift the desk up and the top came off.  “Joe, you didn’t turn them things so the arrows moved.”

“They are locking nuts,” Adam explained.  “They have to be the right way to hold the screws.

“Then you turn ‘em.”  Joe said, in disgust.

Adam did as Joe suggested with a furious glance at his brother and then went back to the instructions.  “Attach the keyboard panel 5 to the unit by using four screws.”

“Which screws?”  Hoss asked holding out a handful of screws in varying sizes.

Adam consulted his instructions, “It doesn’t say.”

“How’m I supposed to know then?”

“Use your common sense.” Adam snapped back.

“’Cording to you I ain’t got none.”  Hoss growled, standing up and towering over his older brother who was squatting by the partly completed desk.

“Boys, lets have less arguing.  If you can’t work together and be pleasant then stop.” Ben intervened, but Hoss and Adam continued to glare at each other so he went back to his book with a shake of his head.

Joe ignored his battling brothers and picked out four screws, “Use these, they look the right length.”  He began fixing them in place.  “Hey it slides in and out, neat!”

Adam and Hoss forgot their squabble and each felt it necessary to test the new shelf.

“Now you need to turn it upside down and fit the side bits on to the top.”  Adam read out.  “Take it easy, Joe.  Don’t break the bit we’ve done.”

“Here you do it.”  Joe let go of his end, and it dropped on to the top and by some miracle slotted into the holes just right.

“Joe!”  Adam shouted.

Hoss lifted the whole thing on his own and slowly lowered it so that the slots lined up with the screws and the top fitted perfectly.

They added a shelf and then Hoss turned it upside down and Joe fitted the feet, since this was just a matter of pressing them into holes where they snapped in place there was no argument, until two of them refused to snap on.

“Here, let me do it,”  Hoss suggested and using far more pressure than was necessary he forced the feet into the holes.  He also tapped the tiny nails into the back panel and fitted it easily.  One tap from a hammer in his fist and the nail went home.  “Hey, why is the back in two pieces with a gap in the middle?” He asked.

Adam shrugged, “I think it’s for the wires.”

Joe raised an eyebrow and thought what wires? But kept his opinion to himself.

Finally they had to attach the doors.  At the first attempt Hoss screwed the hinge on the wrong way around and had to take it off again.

“C’mon, Hoss, it’s obvious they go this way.”  Adam complained.

“Ain’t obvious to me.  I ain’t never seen no hinges like these.”  Hoss rejoined.

“They make the doors close inside the frame of the box instead of outside, it’s neater.”  Adam twisted one in his hands, “Good piece of engineering, I’ve not seen hinges like this either but they work real well.”

Hinges in place on the door, it was necessary for two of them to work together to fit the other side and make sure the door hung level and closed smoothly.  There was a lot of exclaiming under their breath which made Ben raise his eyebrows a time or two but finally Hoss and Adam had the doors fitted as they wanted, or as Adam wanted anyway.

Joe held the final piece in his hand, “Hey it’s a magnet,” he said, as the two remaining screws attached themselves to it when he moved it from the table.

“Yes, it’s a magnet,” Adam growled, “It makes the door stay shut, works better than a catch and is less likely to break.”  He removed the item from his brother’s grasp and fitted it with the tiny screws to the top of the inside of the cabinet.

“There, it’s all done.”  He said, proudly, though in truth Hoss had done most of the work.

The three boys stood back to admire their handiwork.

“I still say that it would look better made in sturdy Ponderosa Pine,” Ben observed but it’s nice enough.  What’s it for?  And where is it going?”

Adam moved over to stand beside his father’s chair, “I thought it could go in your study by the big desk.  You see you can use it for your accounts and letters and such.”

“I’ve been using my big desk for more than twenty years, why would I need this little thing now?”  Ben stood up and examined the cupboard in front of him.  “Doesn’t even have much storage space and why does this shelf slide in and out?  Its too narrow, hardly any room on it.

“It’s for the computer, Pa.”  Adam spoke as if to a small child, earning himself a glare.

“Computer?  What’s a computer?”

“It’s a machine to help you do accounts and letters and all manner of things.”  Adam became excited at the prospect.  “It does it all much quicker.”

“Well,” Ben observed cautiously, “I’m always keen to find ways to do things quicker as long as that doesn’t mean slipshod,” he glanced at his youngest son.

Adam began reading more instructions.  “See this wire connects the printer to the base unit,” he explained as he pushed two strange looking things into corresponding holes.

“Hey, look this one’s got lots of tiny pins in the end.” Joe exclaimed as he fiddled with another wire.

“Leave it alone, you’ll break it.”  Adam yelled.  “It says here that they are delicate.”

Hoss shrugged and sat down.  “Wood or what passed for wood and screws he could cope with, all this engineering stuff was Adam’s province.  He barely understood the big saw up at the sawmill and wasn’t about to get involved in this new fangled thing.

Adam connected the three big boxes to each other and then the thing he called a keyboard.

“Why aren’t the letters in the right order?”  Joe asked.  “And what are all those funny squiggly ones.”

“I don’t know,” Adam reluctantly admitted, but I guess we’ll learn.  Here there is a book all about it.  He tossed a book that was at least 2 inches thick at his younger brother who passed it to Ben.

“I guess if you’re doing accounts and things you’ll need to read it first, Pa.”  He said, hopefully.  “Then you can show us.”

Ben winced at the weight of the book, it wasn’t going to be a quick read.  He wasn’t at all sure he wanted to make things quicker if it took several days of reading to do so.  His schooldays were well behind him.

Adam reached the last page of his instructions and held up the one remaining wire.  “Just one more and we can try it out. He fastened one end of the wire into the only remaining slot on the base unit and then looked puzzled.

“Go on then,” Joe urged.  “I wanna see how it works.”  He took the instructions from his brother and read, “Plug the power lead into the nearest socket.”

Adam turned the final lead in his hand, “Does it say where this socket is supposed to be?”

Joe shook his head, “Just says the nearest.  Looks like it’s on a wall.”  He looked round the room as if expecting one of these mysterious sockets to appear.

Hoss raised his head and peered at the paper.  “They musta missed a bit out, you know how it is there is always a bit missing when you makes stuff up from these here kits.”

Adam swallowed hard, as he read a bit more about the items he had bought.  “I don’t think so Hoss.  What it needs is electricity.”

“Electricity?  Like lightning, you mean?”  Joe queried.

“No, Joe, not like lightning. It has nothing to do with lightning.”

Joe raised himself up to his full height and glared at his older brother.  “Oh, yes it does.  I remember from old Jonesy’s lessons.  Benjamin Franklin did somethin’ with a key and a kite in a thunderstorm and that was electricity.”

Adam sighed, “Well, yes, I suppose so, but we can hardly harness a lightning bolt, now can we?”

“There have been experiments with electricity but apart from the telegraph I don’t know of anywhere it’s used.”  Ben looked up from his paper and smiled.  “I guess your older brother is ahead of his time as always.  Maybe if we wait a few more years all this,” he waved a hand at the desk and its machine, “will be of some use, but right now chores need doing and they’re not going to get done by electricity.”

The three boys sighed and with one last look at the new but useless piece of equipment headed out to the barn, oil lamp in hand.

The End

            In 1870 (maybe a couple of years after this story is set) Thomas Edison invented the first DC generator, he later was responsible for lighting the whole of New York City.  Electricity to homes and public places was first introduced in 1881.  Computers in the broadest sense had been around a while, e.g. mechanized looms with punch cards etc. Christopher Sholes produced a typewriter with a QWERTY keyboard in 1868, so that existed but probably wasn’t well enough known for Joe to have heard of it.  The company which was the forerunner of IBM came into being in 1896.  Computers gradually got smaller and were used in commercial concerns. UCLA became the first node on the internet in 1968. The first word processors came along in 1979. So Adam didn’t have long to wait, just 100 years or so!