Screw Number Seventeen

The whole thing started reasonably. A Saturday afternoon, a flat-pack box, a master's degree, and what felt like a perfectly rational belief that two adults could build a shelving unit before dinner. By hour three, the husband had vanished into another room and not returned, a butter knife was serving as a screwdriver, and one panel — installed upside down at step four — had given the whole structure the slow rightward list of a ship that has already decided to go under.

"Screw Number Seventeen" is a three-act character song for that moment. It opens as a contralto recitative: calm, deliberate, the measured voice of someone recounting a domestic tragedy with the dignity it deserves. The orchestra enters quietly beneath her — soft strings, a piano keeping time — as she describes the wordless manual, the stick figures, the dawning realization that the person who designed this instruction booklet has never once felt compassion. Then the tempo turns. The brass arrives. The full choir enters on the Titanic metaphor and does not leave. By the finale, the missing screw has become a cause, the dowels have become antagonists, and the whole ensemble is pulling toward a sustained fortissimo close that says, with absolute sincerity: one star.

The song is performed by a full pit orchestra with choir, modulating from D minor through to a D major finale that lands somewhere between triumph and rubble. A three-note pizzicato figure — short, sharp, a little accusatory — recurs every time Screw Number Seventeen is named, growing louder each time, until the last statement at full orchestra and choir. It earns it.

[Verse 1] It was a Saturday morning. The light was clean and golden through the blinds. I had assembled a life — a pension, a mortgage, A master's degree from a respected institution. I was ready. I had the Allen wrench. I had hope.

[Verse 2] The box arrived flat, as promised. Flat as my patience would later become. Inside: two hundred and thirty-seven pieces And a manual — a wordless, silent document Of stick-figure drawings That I can only assume Were designed — by a sadist.

[Pre-Chorus] Step one. Step two. Panel A connects to Rail B. Step three was manageable. Step four... I put the wrong panel on upside down.

[Chorus] And now she's listing — listing to the left! Like the Titanic going down! My KALLAX, my KALLAX, Is a monument to grief! The dowels are laughing, The screws are gone, And Screw Number Seventeen — Does not exist!

[Verse 3] I checked the bag. I checked the floor. I checked the manual page by page once more. Twenty-seven screws. I counted twice. Screw Number Seventeen was not among the price!

I called across the house — can you come help me, dear? Three hours later — no reply — he has disappeared! I found a butter knife. I made it work as best I could. I am a grown adult. I went to graduate school!

[Chorus] And she's listing — listing to the left! Like the Titanic going down! My KALLAX, my KALLAX, Is a monument to grief! The dowels are laughing, The screws are wrong, And Screw Number Seventeen — Was never in the box!

[Bridge] Oh the dowels — the dowels! They mock me! They roll across the hardwood floor with glee! My husband has abandoned me to Sweden's cruelest crime! I used a butter knife! A butter knife! At forty-nine!

[Finale] Tonight I'll sleep beside my books, unhoused upon the floor! No shelves to hold my paperbacks — not now, not anymore! But I shall rise, I shall rise, With an Allen wrench held high —

[Choir] One star! One star! To IKEA I say: one star! For the screws, the lies, the wordless guide, For the husband lost inside! For the panel upside-down! For the leaning flat-pack crown!

[Coda] Screw — Number — Seventeen — Was never — in — the — box!

[Tag] One. Star.