Learning (the hard way) what Ikea instructions are trying to tell me

Ikea. Inexpensive items, a little elbow grease, and voila: a full home on a budget. The Professor and I have frequented the Swedish box store giant off and on for years. I have assembled a dining room table, three cabinets, one chair, a long CD tower, and one end table. And I have never once gotten injured in the process of said constructions.

So when it came to mounting a magnetic knife strip, I had little worries. There wasn't much to it: a magnetic strip, a mounting bracket, and two washers.

Then I looked briefly at the instructions, specifically step number two:

 "What is the person in the right image doing wrong?" I wondered. Is lightning striking them? Are they sliding their fingers to the left and right and causing some sort of magnetic friction? It reminded me of old issues of Highlights. What's different in one picture from the other?

I dropped the instructions and began to look at the pieces. The washers went behind the bracket. The bracket gets screwed into the wall. Then the magnetic front gets dropped onto the bracket. I placed the washers on the counter and held the long strips. I brought them close together. Again I wondered: "What's the problem with picture number two?"

If you guessed that the person on the right, Mr. No No we'll call him, has his fingers stuck between the two pieces of metal, one of which contains a long string of powerful magnets, you'd be right. If you also guessed that I was doing the exact same thing as Mr. No No when holding the two pieces precariously close together while standing in my kitchen, you'd also be correct and I would like to have you sitting next to me the next time I do something quite as stupid as what I'm about to confess.

I brought the pieces together. I never once thought about the magnetic pull between the two. Then it happened. It snapped shut like a lobster claw. The Professor, casually observing to this point, looked at me as if I was joking, as if I was possibly pretending to crush my finger between two pieces of metal. Then she saw that the entire magnetic knife holder was dangling from the pinched pad of my fingertip. I danced around the room like a fool or a Woody Allen character being portrayed by Woody Allen. "Helphelphelphelphelp!" I said, knowing fully well there was nothing she could do to help. The Professor flailed her arms. 

I don't know what was worse: the shock or the pain. Either way, I had to do something. Logic would have had me grab a butter knife to pry the pieces apart from each other. But logic doesn't work when a metal knife rack is hanging from a quarter inch of skin. The only thing I could think to do was grab the holder with my free hand and yank out my finger. So that's what I did. It hurt. The pad instantly puffed to twice its normal size and a nice bite of skin was removed. I will spare you with photos. But I laughed. I laughed at the pain and the ridiculousness and the sight I imagined any passing neighbor saw for that brief, ten second burst of panic.

Thankfully, ice brought the swelling down.

Afterward, I looked at the instructions once more. The obtuse imagery made perfect sense. Mr. No No on the right was clearly doing something wrong. Perhaps that is why they also include this image in their instructions:

Maybe if I had called Ikea with my direct line, like Mr. Question does in the image, I could have asked what was Mr. No No doing wrong. Instead, I had to learn the hard way.