But then his wife, Lena, found the Edelhoff 4-Tier Ladder Shelf with Drawer , and Marco felt the old, familiar dread settle in his stomach.

Marco had been married for three years, and in that time, he had assembled seventeen items from Vidaxl. He’d built a greenhouse that leaned two degrees south, a shoe cabinet that sighed when you opened it, and a garden shed whose roof only leaked when it wasn’t raining. Each time, he swore it would be his last.

A screw, an Allen key, and a cam lock nut, arranged in a triangle. Below them, a small drawing of a man crying.

“It’s only six steps,” Lena said, handing him the cardboard box. “The picture looks nice.”

Marco looked at the Bauanleitung one last time. He folded it carefully, slid it back into the box, and wrote on the front in permanent marker:

There were no words. Vidaxl had transcended language years ago. Instead, there were six pictograms.

The final pictogram showed the completed shelf. Underneath it was a tiny drawing of a man shrugging. That was it. Just a shrug.