Some Assembly Required

I recently purchased a walker for our almost ten-month-old daughter.  Not only would this walker contain our increasingly mobile baby, I thought, but it would also take up the last three remaining feet of space we had in our living room, next to the Pack-n-Play, the toy chest and stroller.  Because heaven forbid we should be able to walk to the kitchen without tripping on an annoying musical snail or a Jumperoo.  With this walker, our living room has become officially IMPOSSIBLE to cross — so all we can do is stand on the stairs and toss Skye into the endless sea of baby junk, with the hope that she lands on something soft.  I am happy to report that she usually does.

If I so much as look at assembly instructions, I get a migraine, so the unenviable task of putting the walker together went to Mr. Candy.  To make up for this, I allowed him to tap into my talent:  made-up swear words.  Not that my husband lacks for expletives, mind you; however, he needed as much obscene ammunition as possible while going to war with the piece-meal walker, which had approximately the same number of parts as the Space Shuttle.

“Put the screw in the appropriate place,” the instructions helpfully advised.  (I kid you not.)

“Screw THIS, ass clown!” Mr. Candy grumbled, taking a hammer to the wheel.  Although I questioned whether that was the “appropriate place,” I didn’t dare say a word, certainly not with a hammer in Mr. Candy’s flailing hand.

One hour and several mysteriously unused screws later, the walker was finally ready to take out for a spin!  Woo-hoo…

… Ooooo?  As you can tell, Miss Skye appreciated all of her father’s hard work.

Two seconds later, we removed her from the walker and went back inside.  To carve out more space in the living room for the walker that we likely would never use, Mr. Candy did what any rational parent would in this situation:  took a hammer to the plastic snail.* We weren’t a fan of his music, anyway.

*Note to PETA:  No plastic snails were actually harmed in the course of this story. That is not to say, however, that the annoying toy, which spontaneously bursts into song if we so much as speak too loudly or look at it the wrong way, won’t get crushed under the heel of my boot in a tragic “accident” one of these days.