It’ll Feel Better When It Quits Hurting
June 2nd, 2007
Let me give you some advice putting together a swing set takes
more then one person. That is unless you enjoy suffering aches
and pains in muscles you did not even know you had. My wife told
me to get some help but I assured her by the pictures in the
instructions it looked like one guy could do it. Boy was I
wrong.
So there I was the swing set instruction book in one hand, while
the other hand was waving goodbye to my wife as she drove off on
a weeklong excursion at the shore with her lady friends. As I
turned around to go back into the house I was thinking this was
going to be a great week. I could get that swing set together in
one or two days and then have the rest of the week to lie around
watching videos and playing on my computer.
My wife was on the road to the shore, my kids were both away at
camp for the week, so for me it was just an empty house, one
simple building project and then relaxation. . What more could a
guy ask for? Well for one thing cooler temperature and a weeks
vacation to finish the project.
The next day dawned with bright sunshine, high humidity and
temperatures in the high ninety’s. I was dreading it already. My
thoughts turned to ideas of abandoning the project until cooler
temperatures prevailed. Say around November or December, but my
wife was counting using that swing set for her daycare kids so I
couldn’t let her down. We all no that guys are always on time
with the tasks that our wives ask us to do.
So with such great (hot) weather to start off the first day of
my building project I laid out the tools and the different parts
of the sing set to in order to better acquaint myself with the
instructions, all the parts to the swing set and whatever else I
would need to get me started. Well actually that is what I
should have done what I actually did was get my tools rip open
the boxes and lay into that thing. An hour later and at least10
pounds lighter from all the sweating I had my first two boards
bolted together I was on my way.
Once I was finally able to get those first two boards together I
figured it would be all down hill from there, but unfortunately
the hill I was going down would last five scorching hot, paint
blistering days. Well I exaggerated a little on the heat but it
was hot and it was humid. The kind of humidity that causes your
shirt to stick fully to your body but even that could not dampen
my joy (pardon the pun) because by the end of five days I
finally had a fully functional swing set.
Well I hoped it was functional and it appeared from my
observation to be put together correctly. Well it looked like
the picture on the box. Now as to how well it would hold up
under the rigorous use of little children remained to be seen
because no children had actually played on it yet.
My week, of what I thought would be rest, turned into one of a
lot of sweat, toil and pain. In fact I was in agony for a couple
of weeks because I had used muscles I did not know I even had
all in the name of putting together a swing set that had as it
was written on the box” some assembly required’, but you know
once I got over that pain and watched those children playing on
that swing set it was all worth it.
That is the same way life is, sometimes we go through a lot of
pain and suffering and do not understand why, but later when we
look back we see that there was something we learned from what
happened to us. It may be some small truth or something that we
can build on later but the point is we have learned.
I know I learned a few things from putting that swing set
together. One do not believe in instructions that say some
assembly required, because they actually should say you are
going to spend days trying to figure out what these instructions
mean. Two, be careful of the weatherman when he says sunny and
warm. Three, get a couple of guys who know what they are doing
to help you put together whatever it is you are assembling and
then provide them with support and a lot of water and lemonade.
Entry Filed under: Humorists Lair