Some Assembly Required

Some Assembly Required


Christmas afternoon in our house was filled with many delicate engineering feats. I retreated to the kitchen and busied myself with cooking. My husband and sister-in –law set up Lego construction camp in the living room. Now two weeks after Christmas the Lego Knight is missing an arm and the Lego Pirate Ship has an odd looking appendage coming off the starboard side. This is what happens to toys when there is some assembly required.
Now I am not opposed to assembly. I think it’s a great way to spark imagination and encourage creativity (in parents). I suppose I should be grateful that there are only boys in our house; otherwise we would be finding Polly Pocket dolls with Lego Knight’s armor coming out of their purses.
Every year my husband and I plan to complete the assembly of all toys prior to wrapping them so that Christmas day is more peaceful and void of all toy construction. The only problem is our kid’s birthdays also land in the last quarter of the year. So in the rush of organizing birthdays and preparing for Christmas, the toys get wrapped as they are sold, with “Some assembly required”.
One could really get stumped by that little adjective “some”. Some toys come ready to snap together with only a few parts. But more than once our kids have unwrapped a toy that looks great on the cover of the box, but inside
is a treasure trove of odd pieces shaking in the package like a festive castanet. My husband usually disappears downstairs to his workshop to completely build the toy that was sold with “some” assembly required. Moments later I hear the familiar droning of power tools. Now a disclaimer; I’m not sure if the toy actually requires the use of the power tool, or my beloved husband merely takes every opportunity at his disposal to a) retreat to his testosterone sanctuary and b) operate a power tool. I suspect an ordinary tool would do, because in a pinch I have repaired many a toy with the lone all purpose screwdriver I keep in our “junk drawer” in the kitchen, the last bastion of female ingenuity that has not crossed over to the other side. I attached a pink ribbon to it in hopes of discouraging any tool migration down to the inner sanctum of power tools. So far so good. No self respecting weekend tool warrior walks around with tools with frilly embellishments.
Now it isn’t only toys that require some assembly. Household goods of all kinds come only partially ready to use. There are two schools of thought on assembly instructions. For the most part my husband dives right in and doesn’t even look at the instructions. Usually his keen engineering prowess is right on and everything comes out just as it’s supposed to. I’m from the other school; I read carefully and proceed with caution. I recently assembled a laundry hamper and shelf unit. I bent three screwdrivers trying to get the hardware unscrewed from the frame so I could properly assemble it, my decorated screwdriver not withstanding. I was following the instructions to the letter. I gave up, raised my domestic white flag, and asked my husband for help. In a flourish, the power tools came out. He began assembling my laundry cart with all of the exuberant glee of a NASA engineer constructing a lunar landing pod.
I have a maternal fantasy about how to keep toys with many pieces together. I’m hoping it will catch on with all the toy manufacturers. Using computer chips, magnets, and a series of light sensors, I think that toys that have been torn asunder in the daytime should slowly make their way back to the “Mother Ship” when the lights go out. How wonderful it would be to turn off the lights and tuck the kids in amidst chaos and in the morning find order and sanity. The farm animals would go back to the Fisher Price Farm to graze, the plastic food would make its way back to the pretend grocery store. The Bionicle arm stuck carelessly on the Lego fortress would make the journey back to the robotic man, snapped snugly in place and ready to do battle in a new day. However, like all technology, I’m sure there would be problems and occasionally the Lego Knight’s sword would make its way into Barbie’s Dreamhouse. Barbie could rest assured her new toy would be safe. All she would have to do is tie a pink ribbon around it. No self respecting knight would carry the sword back to the Lego fortress with such frilly embellishments. Hey, it works for me.

Kim Mihelich