This is becoming my least favorite phrase in the English language with the stealth of a young gazell being pursued by a famished panther. Last night, the wife and I endeavored to put together a wooden, rocking Moses basket stand that we'd ordered online in preparation for the impending arrival of our second child, the proposed date of which is hurtling towards us like a flaming meteorite bound for a doomed earth. In any case, what seemed like a reasonably straightforward operation summarily became an excercise in clenched-jawed frustration and sore palms. As I struggled manfully with the unwieldly aparatus, I couldn't help picturing the sadistic Scandiweigan who designed the stupid thing, and fantasized about clubbing him into a babbling state of bruised submission with the very device he so poorly conceived. After releasing stream after stream of needlessly detailed expletives that, by all rights, should have woken our other child sleeping peacfully in the next room, I managed -- with, I should point out, the cooler-headed assistance of my lovely wife -- to fully assemble the stand, albeit in a wobbly, decidedly lesser incarnation than I had originally envisioned. With our evening's task complete, I repaired noisily to the kitchen to crack open a begrudgingly celebratory beer.
I can't help but predict that, with two children in the house, the rest of my life is going to be a long, grueling regimen of Karmic retribution involving just these sorts of tasks of ham-fisted carpentry, so I'd better get in touch with my inner Bob Villa with all speed.
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