If there is one thing that I truly dread, it is buying a product I know will come with instructions. It is one of the reasons why I never played with Lego as a child, and one of the reasons I was not looking forward to opening my son's Christmas presents. I knew that within that pile, there was a Lego Star Wars space ship, complete with tiny strapping system and moving parts, that I was going to have to help him set up.

Lego is a German built toy, and I was thinking I would be experiencing the same level of adventure I felt when assembling my Ikea built desk. That is, the adventure feeling Dante was exploring in his epic poem about Hell. However, it turns out that whoever designed the Lego instruction manuals could give regular classes to anyone who does the same job for slurry mixer companies and others.

To put it simply, Lego instructions are, well, simple. It's doubly impressive when you think of the fact that these tiny toys are incredibly intricate in their design; millimetres off and nothing would work as it should. Yet, the instructions are entirely dependent on pictures and numbers which easily translate the assembly story to even the most obtuse builder.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for the other pieces of equipment I have purchased in the months since Christmas. My new exercise machine is a perfect example. Like my son's spaceship, the home gym was built with precision. A corner notcher was used to bend that metal into place for everything from the pulleys to the frame, and it all had to be assembled properly.

Although we had instructions right in front of us and the help of an experienced assembler from the shop, to say that deciphering the papers in front of us was difficult would be an understatement. There were pictures, written instructions, numbered steps, and yet they all added up to gibberish for all of us involved.

Anyone who has purchased equipment which has to be assembled has had a similar experience. Whether it's placing small pieces of heat shrink tubing or getting the right slots lined up on the arm of a chair, we count on the instructions and more often than not, they let us down. How are we supposed to decipher them?

The best place to start is at the beginning. The most important instruction for any piece is that first one, the one which tells you to unpack and tally all the parts first. Skip this step, and when you get to a higher level you may find that the problem is one of omission, rather than translation, as the part you need is actually missing.

Your next step in deciphering instructions, of course, is to contact the manufacturer. Fortunately, we have a few options open in this area today. Aquarium test kits, printers, and almost everything else have websites you can check when you get confused by the instructions, as well as hotlines to call. Sometimes you best bet for deciphering instructions comes from the people who wrote them themselves!

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