"What we need are shelves," my fiancée had said, standing at the bathroom door.
   "Why?" I asked, surveying the bench top covered in deodorants, shaving foam, aftershaves and an assortment of scrubs and moisturisers which promised eternal beauty.

Eternal beauty was proving more elusive than I had anticipated, my increasingly frantic search for a miracle elixir causing my collection of male cosmetics to grow at an alarming rate.

   "Because this is a mess," she said.
   "Ok," I replied, hoping she wouldn't notice the newly purchased tube of miracle anti-dorking cream and the tub of frown-line remover.

I had no intention of doing anything shelf-wise, but had learnt long ago that the best course in life was to emulate our politicians by agreeing with everyone while doing nothing. What I had failed to allow for, however, was the hypnotic effect of hardware superbarns.

   "Shelves," said Kassya.
   "Shelves," I repeated robotically as we wandered the aisles of the sprawling hardware store and picked up a set of do-it-yourself bathroom shelves.

It is not widely known that hardware stores inject a chemical agent into their air-conditioning systems that convinces morons they are tradesmen. Once they get home the effect wears off, but by then it's too late. "Shelves," I thought, staring at the glass panels, screws and bolts that lay before me on the bathroom bench.

The day had begun badly when a glass leapt out of a cupboard, bounced off my head and ricocheted onto the stovetop before shattering into several thousand pieces on the floor. I didn't need the bathroom shelves with their potential for glass-shattering carnage, but an hour later the shelves were in place and I was admiring my work.

Well, not all "my" work, technically speaking. My fiancée turned out to be quite handy with a tape measure and had measured and marked where the screws were to go. All I had to do was drill the holes and tighten the screws. Beautiful!

   "I'll leave you to it," she said.
   "Too easy," I said, reaching for my drill and almost dropping it in the toilet.

So I drilled the holes, screwed the screws, slid the glass shelves into their grooves and stood back. "God, I'm clever," I thought as I lined up the assorted bottles and tubes in neat rows from the tallest to the smallest and decided to take a shower. Being an accomplished handyman was sweaty work.

I was still congratulating myself as I looked through the glass to see the aftershave on the move again. Oh crap! It wasn't just the aftershave. The moisturisers and the shaving cream and the deodorant were moving as well, marching towards the edge of the shelves. One by one they hurled themselves into space. It was mass suicide!

The deodorant and the shaving cream bounced off the tiled floor, the aftershave bounced off the toilet roll holder and landed on a towel, and a jar of something greasy cracked and oozed across the floor. It was raining male beauty cosmetics.

I flailed the air as I tried to catch them. It was one of those slow-motion moments and, when it ended, I was standing naked in the bathroom, still dripping water, the shower still running, surrounded by the wreckage of my toiletries.

My fiancée phoned later that day to check on my progress.

   "Make sure you tighten those white plastic screws before you put anything on the shelves," she said. "Otherwise they'll slope downwards and everything will slide off."
   "I know that," I said. "I'm not a complete idiot."

"What white plastic screws?" I thought as I hung up and walked into the bathroom. There they were, staring at me accusingly.