Hello, RAKKU Shoe Wheel: You Are The Biggest Pain in the Neck to Assemble

So my mother reads my blog. I wrote about the Rakku Shoe Wheel the other day and when I went to visit last night, I found this little baby sitting in my old room:

She claims it was an early birthday present (my birthday is in September), but I think she just wanted me to tidy up all my shoe closets. :D Either way, I thanked her profusely, rushed home (she gave the box a lift, of course), and proceeded to rip open the cardboard.

Some assembly required. SOME??

Being assailed with all of these tiny bits and bobs scared the hell out of me, but I have to say that my love for shoes outweighed my fear. I could have waited for the boy to come help, of course, but I didn't want to wait 24 hours when I could have my beautiful shoe rack up and rolling. Right. Now.

So I tied back my hair with my favourite purple sparkle scrunchy and set to work.

Assembling the base wasn't actually that hard. Of course I accidentally attached the silver bits upside down, and I only discovered this after I had put in all four screws. I took them out again, reversed the positions, and screwed on the wheels.

Then came the hard part. Attaching the actual wheel required three silver tubes and some screws, but after that came the bit where the roll (made of some sort of rubbery string thing and plastic), needed to be strung up. Unfortunately, weather in the Philippines is hot and muggy, and the plastic sheets had actually stuck to each other. Yes, all 30 of them.

By the time I was finished prying apart the sheets, I was cursing and sweating profusely. I hauled up the sheet, forcibly jammed the outer tube (it was made of more high-grade stretchy cloth) onto the 3 silver tubes, and sealed it with the opposite wheel. It was at this point that I actually thought my troubles were over, as all that was left was to actually string the wheel.

Now, what I didn't understand about this was that the string was stretchable but needed to be taut. So when I had strung up around half the wheel, it suddenly became very, very difficult to string up the remaining notches. This was because the string was reaching its limit, and it required the use of my feet braced on the other end of the base and me bodily pulling the remaining notches into place.

All in all, it took me about two and a half hours to put this thing together. It took the contents of one of my shoe closets, (boots don't fit-- they advertise that all shoes will but they don't, because being smushed in will ruin the leather), but I still have one more shoe rack and about 14 pairs of shoes just in boxes.

I'm not entirely sure what problems I solved with this shoe rack, but I suppose it looks better than my old shoe rack did.

Thanks mom! :D