The Exhausted Dad: The birthday dome of destruction
Nothing tests the mettle of a marriage better than a complicated assembly project.
About every year or so, my wife and I foolishly decide to put together a large-scale, “easy-assembly” toy for our kids. “Easy” means different things to different people.
I don’t think most people struggle with, say, following the instructions to erect a normal size basketball hoop, but I certainly do. The instructions aren’t clear! And, sure, those YouTubers make it look so easy, but they’re also not presenting a truly accurate depiction with all their edits and time-lapses and post-project voice-over commentary.
I accept I’m not very good at building things. My wife is a little better, but not by much. There might be one competent Home Depot cashier between the two of us.
If two of us count as one, then, technically, “one-person” projects should go OK. However, this year, for my youngest daughter’s 8th birthday, we foolishly decided to attempt what was labeled by the manufacturer as a “two-person assembly.”
Two people with four arms each, maybe. Or if one of us was Doctor Octopus.
Before I disparage myself too much, I got beef with the manufacturer of the “10 ft. climbing dome, decagonal geo jungle gym 2023 upgraded with much easier assembly,” a product with hundreds of five-star ratings and reviews that especially tout “easier assembly.”
Easier compared to what? Constructing a space station?
Average assembly time for this Thunderdome of Doom listed at 1-2 hours for two people. We spent 1-2 hours trying to decipher the included assembly instructions. The entire structure comes in a modest sized box (especially considering the size of the final product), but of course that means we’re dealing with about 100 pieces crammed into a box that weighs more than our two largest children.
Want a sign that assembly went horribly wrong for other people in the past? The box also contains two sets of work gloves. That’s unusual right? What accident occurred that led to the company feeling the need to include and encourage using skin protecting gloves for the assembly?
Basically, the box contains a bunch of metal poles, bolts and screws. The first step provides a false sense of confidence. In it, you lay down the bottom pieces of the decagon and screw two bars together at a time.
The box also includes a couple of tiny wrenches and screwdrivers. Thanks for the trinkets, company, but a couple of years ago we invested in a nice ratchet and socket set to make such tightening and loosening of bolts much faster and less strenuous on the fingers…
We spent 1-2 hours looking for the nice ratchet and socket set we bought two years ago. We did not find the nice ratchet and socket set we bought two years ago. So we built the Doom Dome with the trinkets.
After fastening the base of the dome, the instructions ramp up exponentially. For the next level, we’re fastening two bars in a V angle to the corners of the base. You need one person to hold the V bars at the correct angle, and then the other person does the screwing (leave it alone, you dirty birds).
Here you realize you really need the gloves. The edges of the metal bars must lay flat in order to secure the fasteners, and they move all over the place, creating opportunities to trap precious finger skin in-between the bars. A couple of painful pinched fingers later and my wife and I both worked the rest of the project wearing the courtesy/lawsuit-preventing work gloves.
Then the instructions just get ridiculous. You take two existing bars then latch two and then three then four bars together with the existing two, all of which need to be bolted together in the exact correct arrangement of Vs and Ws otherwise the nut won’t come close to latching onto the bolt.
How does one person screw the bolt in while the other holds six bars in place? They don’t. It’s impossible. You must use knees, shoulders and teeth to hold things together, and even then, the bolt BARELY makes it through the hole of the six bars.
Then, hours later, and you’re working in the pitch dark of the backyard, you flip to the last couple pages of the instructions and realize the end is finally near. Except now you’ve got to figure out how to connect and secure all the remaining holes near the top of the structure. The bars won’t reach. The holes you need to be aligned are about a foot apart from each other.
In the instructional YouTube video, the company explains calmly, “In these last steps, you might find that some of the pieces don’t fit as easily. No problem. Just loosen some of the joints connecting the pieces and it will create the extra space you need to snap the structure together.”
(Expletive deleted). (Expletive deleted).
We basically had to loosen, retighten, then loosen again every single stupid joint in the entire dome. Then I had to use all my deeply depleted strength to muscle the six bars together just to provide an inch of clearance for the last nut to secure to the last bolt.
I fell to the ground upon completion. It had been 1-2 hours a few times. I’d lost count.
The next day, my daughter loved her giant new play structure. But did she love it enough? I don’t know. She did say it was bigger than the one at school. But she also played on it for about 20 minutes before coming inside for birthday doughnuts.
No. Go back outside. There will be no doughnuts until your parents are satisfied that their sacrifice was not in vain. Forget about the marriage… the dome of destruction nearly killed us.
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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 5-11. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.
