The Tutorial I couldn't Even Start

I'm just going to be honest here: I couldn't even start this tutorial. When it was assigned, I was already actively working on two of them-- the wagon and the lamp-- which were giving me countless problems even up to the points where I stopped. Since the textured decorative box requires successfully finishing the Wagon tutorial, I went in thinking that maybe-- just maybe-- the book would be lenient and write this mesh tutorial as though the wagon wasn't touched on in the book. It'd make sense to do that anyway: Most software tutorial books I've used in the past have correctly assumed users would be jumping around in the book rather than approaching it as a sequential form of literature.

I am disappoint.

no, that was not a typo. Here's as far as I got:

 That box I did not create. I had to load up a box made for the tutorials because I wasn't able to get to putting the finishing touches on my own. I already went into detail in there, but as a reminder, here's the last step of that tutorial:

I more or less told you in times past, dear reader, that the creator of this book knows Maya is an incredibly clunky, difficult program. I hesitate to refer to the writer of this book or Maya evil, however. that suggests a level of ingenious intent to troll by either Maya's creators or the book that, frankly, I don't think either are capable of. the textbook's attempt at humor falls flat when their own tutorial is largely what demoralizes me-- more so than Maya itself.

When the start of this part of the tutorial includes a note that four of the meshes were missing, I internally shouted "DONE" and metaphorically flipped a table:

 

Next time: The last assignment in Maya (that I know of) and an odd upturn.