Dada is on a “staycation” this week. That means you are getting long overdue things around the house done. If you don’t own a home, you’ve probably never heard on this oddity. I painted, I cut down trees and bushes, I pulled roots, I nailed and I laundered like a barbarian (OK, barbarians don’t launder). I finally met my match though, with the Little Tykes Treehouse/Playgym.
My dad and I were smelling like – well, go to the BMV in July, like that, but sober. We began assembling this plastic Rubik’s cube of a swing set. We felt proud until we realized the part numbers we could find were on the bottom and we had to start over from scratch after ten minutes. Then we forgot the washers and had to unwrench the whole thing. Then we stopped to rag the dripping sweat off our faces, only to realize we lost a locking nut somewhere in the abyss of the backyard. 20 minutes later, I’m at Lowe’s, stuck in fairgrounds dairy farmer traffic. I began to think – didn’t kids used to play with sticks and dirt? They turned out alright, I think.
I got to step 12. It called for STRING, SCOTCH TAPE (not scotch, I would be all for that) and A PENCIL. I’m assembling a swing set. WHY IN THE BLUE HELL DO I NEED STRING, SCOTCH TAPE AND A PENCIL – NO ONE USES PENCILS, IT’S 2016. I had to tie a string to an eyebolt, tape off the bracket (I did the wrong order because the pictures were wrong – thanks team that did the manual) and push a pencil through a hole 9 inches deep. OH WAIT, I HAVE NORMAL MAN HANDS SO IT DIDN’T FIT BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE HALF HANDS LIKE MORDECAI BROWN OR A ONE YEAR OLD. I had to use needle nose pliers and a piece of rebar to finesse it through. I used curse words I had forgotten years before.
I was pumped, we were halfway done. Then I realized the bar for the swings was not in the box. I blacked out for a minute, then came through and realized I had survived a rage stroke. I called Toys R Us, which fixed the problem…by offering me to pick up the bar, after putting me on hold for 20 minutes with Radio Disney. I am broken. I plan now to teach my daughter the wonder of…IMAGINATION! Let’s pretend there’s a swing set! YAY! FUN FOR ALL!