There are three words whose perfection and beauty are unsurpassed in the English language:
NO ASSEMBLY REQUIRED.
(What? Did you think I was going to be a sentimental fool and profess something sappy like “I love you?”)
I have been mechanically-challenged my entire life. I will admit it is part laziness, part impatience, part knowing there is a man somewhere to help me and part incompetence. The most part.
I destroyed our refrigerator’s ice machine last winter. If you missed that doozy of a confession, just know it involved black nail polish and a grinder. And an inordinate amount of dark, goopy ugliness.
I am an ice addict and a day without cubes is like a day without a hit for a junkie. So, I immediately tackled the ice machine with soap, water and even nail polish remover. But most of the unit was unsalvageable. My husband Jamie reluctantly ordered a $50 hunk of plastic to replace it and I waited with great anticipation for the part to arrive. Frustrated, he banned me from buying ice cube trays or bags of ice–assuredly a new form of spousal abuse.
I was thrilled when I finally received the part until I noticed the two most dreaded words in the English language: Assembly Required.
I knew I couldn’t do it so I admittedly barely even tried, which resulted in my normally accommodating husband’s refusal to fix it. And so it sat and sat and sat.
To hold me over, I would call my dealer Lisa.
“Lisa, I’m running low.”
“I’ll empty mine out and be right over.”
She once even bought me a 20-pound bag of ice. I think some would call her an enabler.
With the prospect of summer’s soaring temperatures, this ice junkie finally cracked. I knew I couldn’t survive the next few months without it and so when mechanically-gifted Lisa took pity on me by offering to fix the ice machine, I took her up on it.
She spent hours obsessing and piecing it all together. Hours where she could have been working on taxes, cleaning her house or ensuring her five children did not kill each other on summer break.
That night as I lay in bed, I heard it: the rumblings of the ice machine finally working. I rushed downstairs, threw myself in the freezer and praised my friendship with Lisa in song. My selection?
(More) Ice, Ice, Baby. Of course. 
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 