When I was in grade 12, someone had the bright idea of all of us getting together and giving blood. The idea was with less blood in our system we could get more drunk. I didn’t say it was good idea. A long story short, I ended up fainting in front of the whole student body and having my bladder release. In other words, I passed out and pissed myself in front of the whole school.
That was the worst day of my life.
The second worst day of my life was putting Abby’s crib together.
My loving wife did a great deal of research for our daughter’s furniture and I cannot fault her on any of her decisions. Except one. Listen up people, “Some Assembly Required” is code for “There is crap load of assembly coming your way! In fact, you should block out the whole weekend”. It’s not really her fault. But still, I have to blame someone.
This effin’ thing was ridiculous. There was not one piece that came pre-assembled. Not that big a deal, right? Trust me when I say this, any guy who has ever assembled anything above an IKEA wall shelf will understand. It is very difficult to hold two pieces of wood together and drill a screw into place. My wife tried to help, but she was pregnant and that ain’t right. Asking a pregnant woman to help. The guy I referred to earlier in this paragraph understands.
Once I manage to hold the two pieces of wood together and evolve that third arm I’ve been working on in order to grab the drill and screw, I notice, wait…what the hell? Where are the guide holes? You mean to tell me I have to drill my own friggin’ guide holes!
And thus began the first round of cursing…
After yelling at the crib materials, yelling at the manufacture and yelling at my wife [sorry about that by the way] I got back to work. I drilled the guide holes, got the wood in place and grab the drill and screw and then…seriously?! You got to be kidding me. The manufactures in their hellish mission to force my wife to divorce me have managed to build this thing so as to make it impossible to use a drill. I’ve got to hand screw all these screws. Oh well, on the bright side, I now have the largest forearms of anyone I know.
And thus began the second round of cursing…
There I am, cursing, sweating, and throwing stuff aside. My wife is standing by being as supportive as possible trying not to stare at my freakishly large, bulging forearm muscles. I am this close to chucking the whole thing out the window and clearing out a drawer for Abby to sleep in when the thought dawns on me. Abby will never thank me for this. I will never get kudos from the person I’m doing this for. As far as she will be concerned, this crib has always existed. She’ll never understand nor appreciate my pain, my anguish, my frustration. The only one who will know is my wife and she’s in the bedroom packing her things having had enough of my bullshit.
Eff this. I pick the thing up and get to the top of the stairs. I’ve got the aborted half crib over my head all set to chuck it when I have another revelation. My dad built my crib. Someone had to have built it and my dad wasn’t the kind of guy to let others do his work for him. In fact, there was a lot of stuff my dad did that I not only never said thank you for, but never even knew thanks were to be given. What about all those gifts from Santa? What about that really sweet jumpy thing I had? There’s no way that came with the house.
I began to wonder if he carried on then the way I was getting on now. He was probably worst. You think I have a temper…Pft…you ain’t seen nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he shot a small woodland creature out of frustration. But he did it all the same. He put that thing together knowing he was never going to get thanks. And now I’m doing the same…circle of life sort of stuff, right? Hakuna Matata…
Hold on. Wait a second… I can change that right now. I can make up for all that unheralded work. I can end the cycle right here right now. Dear dad, for all the stuff you did that I never appreciated or said thank you for…thanks. The crib was awesome and that jumpy thing was a sweet, sweet ride. I’m sorry it took so long.
It’s weird how it took 33 years and a drastic life change for me to come to this realization. And in 33 years, I’ll be looking forward to Abby saying pretty much the exact same thing.
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