The Inner Monologue

Oh, the joy of following instructions. Step 1: Do this. Step 2: Do that. Step 3: Do another thing. Step 4: Oh, by the way—BEFORE YOU DID STEP 2, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO SACRIFICE A GOAT UNDER A FULL MOON.

Wait, what?

Yes, of course. Because nothing says “user-friendly” like burying a critical prerequisite after the point where it would’ve been useful. It’s like playing a game of Jenga where halfway through, the rules casually mention, “Oh, also, you should’ve glued all the blocks together first. Oops. Your fault for not reading ahead!”

I get it. We were all supposed to learn in grade school to read all directions first. But let’s be real—nobody does that. We’re busy, impatient humans, not psychic monks with infinite foresight. If your instructions contain a landmine that could ruin everything unless I perform some secret ritual three steps ago, maybe—just maybe—LEAD WITH THAT.

And don’t even get me started on the passive-aggressive “Note: Failure to do this may result in catastrophic failure.” Oh, fantastic. So now, not only am I backtracking, but I also get to wonder if I’ve just doomed my project to the shadow realm because your instructions were organized by a chaos gremlin.

Here’s a radical idea: Give your directions to a sane person to proofread. If their response isn’t “Uh, should this part come first?” then congratulations—you’ve achieved basic instructional decency.

Otherwise, I’ll just be over here, rocking in the fetal position, wondering why life can’t be simple.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Just Wanted to Assemble a Damn Bookshelf.