Man vs Swing Set

April 22, 2002

My son had a birthday this month so his grandparents decided to get him a swing
set. Nice idea in theory. But as with all things in life, reality is much, much more messy. I'll give you three guesses what I did this weekend and the first two don't count.

First let me describe the box. I think it was something left over from a
NASA garage sale. Something they stored their old rockets in. It was a
miracle we even got it to our house. Luckily my wife's dad and mom were
visiting so we crammed it into her parents' 4x4. I was scared to open it,
but we did. Parts just kept coming out. We bought a swing set with a
slide, teeter-totter, two single swings and a two-person porch swing, but by
the time we got all the parts strewn about the lawn it looked like we were
going to build something along the lines of U2's stage during the "Achtung
Baby" tour.

So we have the parts all over the lawn. I forgot to mention it was 40
degrees outside. Then it started to drizzle. But we forged on and got the
directions out. Let me just say this about the directions; if I find the
guy in China who wrote those $!@#$ing directions I'm going to shove a Toys
Are Us deluxe model X2000 swing set slide right up his ass. Why they let
communists write swing set assembly directions is a mystery to me.

Somehow we got the main frame of the thing together. My hands kept slipping
trying to tighten the bolts in the steady drizzle. My father-in-law was
working on the two person swing while I was trying to put the slide
together. Pieces were missing. The bolts never fit into the holes.
Neither of us spoke. We just kept on putting pieces together, randomly
cussing and crying out in frustration. Then it started to rain so we called
it a day and went into the house defeated. The half assembled swing set sat
in the rain looking like some kind of grotesque science fiction monster.
My son looked up at me with his big blue eyes and asked in his sweet little
voice, "Swing dada??" I looked at him and realized for the first time in my
life I'd let him down and all I could muster to say was, "No son, your
grandpa couldn't get the swing together."

Sunday dawned with fresh optimism. It was a balmy 41 degrees outside but
this time no rain. We attacked the beast with everything we had. We had a
Chinese interpreter from the University of Nebraska on the cell phone. I
had some holy water and we did an exorcism on the teeter-totter. My
father-in-law had to leave and head back home. I struggled on alone.

Then a crucial breakthrough. My Chinese interpreter friend from the
University cracked part of the code on page 197 of the directions. The
tetter-totter puzzle was solved. The beast began to weaken. Finally I had
it all put together but I still had to tighten the bolts so it didn't
crumple in a heap when the first bird landed on it. The beast got one in
last shot and I cut my hand tightening a bolt. Bleeding, freezing, nursing
a calf cramp and the emotional scars of letting my son down the day before I
finally finished. I stumbled into the house victorious and announced, "It's
put together!!!" My wife and son were watching TV and looked up just long
enough to say, "Good job," then turned back to the TV. I know how the
troops must have felt coming home from 'Nam in '74.

Well, my son had a blast tonight on his swing set. He had so much fun he
didn't want to come in for dinner. Ahhh, sweet redemption.