Total collapse

Tale Submitted by: Dave Thomas

Some years ago I was working in a very nice 70’s open plan bungalow. ?I had installed a new item (DVD player, I think) under the TV in the corner of the large living room.
The whole of the long wall from my corner along the length of the room, about 6 metres, was covered with ‘Ladderax’ style fitted wall mounted furniture on adjustable wooden ladder uprights (if you are old enough, like me, you will remember Ladderax).
There were open shelves, glass shelves, cupboards, bureau sections, books, records, cds, speakers and a complete B+O wide, sleek and expensive HiFi system.
There was a gap in the units in my corner for the Panasonic TV on its own cabinet and I had been sitting in this gap behind the TV leaning against the ?wall. (and I swear I didn’t touch any of it!)

Anyway, I had finished the installation and had called the customer into the room to show off my handiwork and teach him how to use it.
We knelt in the middle of the room around the coffee table and I wanted a pen to draw a plan of the connections. My customer fetched one from the bureau unit and we sat down again.
There was a creaking and splitting noise and the bureau unit came off the wall followed by a large number of the shelves, a speaker, the records and much much more, and the whole lot landed on the B+O stereo system. The speaker ended up as 4 separate sides, the stereo was completely smashed and there was glass and ornaments everywhere.
We just sat there in stunned silence, surrounded by broken junk. We looked at each other, surveyed the scene again and eventually agreed that we were glad he was in the room to see it as, if he hadn’t ?been, he would have assumed it was my my fault and I must have touched something! ?If I had been in his shoes, I suppose I would have blamed me as well. ?I don’t know how I would have convinced him otherwise.