Once upon a time there was a man named Allen, or maybe that was just the company’s name, I don’t know and I don’t really care. Allen said, “You know, the world seems pretty well served in terms of the number of available types of screwdrivers. We’ve got slot-head for simple stuff, Phillips screws if you want the driver to be able to cam out, and Robertson if you don’t. So I think I will invent a totally unnecessary new type of screwdriver.” And the Allen Wrench was born.
Then the furniture companies said, “You know, we’ve got a pretty good deal here selling furniture. But wouldn’t it be even more profitable if we could sell furniture without going to the bother of assembling it. Then we could fire some of our employees, make more money, and cause people to be frustrated and injured.” Some advisors said, “But customers will complain if we give them unassembled furniture.” And the company owners said, “Well, we’ll fix that two ways. First, we’ll manufacture lines of super-cheap-ass stuff people won’t mind assembling. Then, for some expensive stuff, we just will neglect to mention it needs to be assembled.” Then they fired the advisors.
Well, they realized that to sell unassembled furniture they would need to include things like the screws and bolts. They also realized people might go postal if they did not have the tools to fasten the screws and bolts. But it cost money, money better used to print pink slips, to include screwdrivers with every kit. What to do?
“Hey hey,” said Mr. Allen, “Have I got a solution fopr you. Instead of including real screws with real screwdrivers, why not use my Allen screws and Allen keys? As you can see, this worthless disposable Allen keys only cost about two cents apeice, because they do not have handles and the ends bend and wear out after being used on three, four screws, tops. We can do this because the keys are made of cheese.”
The furniture company owners though this was a great idea and signed a contract that said that they would use Allen screws and keys in furniture kits until the end of time. They also secretly signed a deal with Home Depot that that store would never, ever, ever stock Allen key bits for power drills.
Now, you might think this all happened because Mr. Allen was a sadist. But you would be wrong. He was, in fact, psychotic.
So I paid $1400 for a goddamn fucking dining room set and it wasn’t even fucking assembled, surprise surprise, so I had to assemble it by hand, and of course the fucking Allen key was made of cheese and was shit within 15 minutes and killed my hand, so I had to spend two fucking hours scouring hardware stores for fucking drill bits and when I finally got somh enad got the fucking chairs assembled, found that the kit for the table did not include any fucking TABLE LEGS for fuck’s fucking sake.
Allen: Fuck you
Leon’s Furniture: Fuck you
Home Depot: Fuck you