Some Assembly Required

As I write this, there’s only 49 sleeps, 14 hours, 14 minutes & 49 seconds until December 25th (according to Santa’s Official Christmas Countdown Clock) so time has come once again for the little ones to write their list of what they’d like.

I’m hoping mighty hard that there’s nothing on there that includes extra batteries, or any assembly whatsoever.

My Beloved and I are only just recovering from last year’s efforts.

Since I just happened to be in a particular discount department store when they put out a huge special on trampolines (which featured prominently on the 2008 Christmas list), guess what the kids ended up with? And since I knew for a fact that a friend wanted one for her tribe, I simply had to do my civic duty and call to let her know about the bargain too.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

Anyone who’s ever tried to steer a shopping trolley knows how incredibly exasperating it can be. I swear the things have a mind of their own, and no sense of direction whatsoever.

It’s also sadly obvious that they’re not designed to take the big ticket items, because I had a reindeer’s chance in hunting season of fitting our trampoline in the wire basket provided - let alone two of them!

I can only say how happy I was that the display of said items was fairly close to the Lay-by department, at least I didn't have far to go.

So there I was- trying to lift one of the boxes onto the trolley one-handed, and guard the other one- in amidst the fiercest crowd of bargain hunters I have ever encountered. I practically growled at any shopper that came sniffing around my haul, just waiting for me to abandon my bouncy booty.

Seemed I was making a spectacle of myself (so what’s new? I hear my Beloved ask) and soon there was a friendly staffer hovering to offer assistance.

Unfortunately, the size of the staffer in question was even smaller than my pathetic 5 foot 4½ inches, and she was as hopeless as I was in attempting to balance a box across the top of the trolley (of course the dimensions were too big for it to fit inside). After fruitless efforts to make the mate fit as well, I then had the cunning plan of nudging the other one along on the floor (using my good leg) inch-by-painstaking-inch towards the Lay-by counter, also trying to steer the rogue shopping cart as I went.

It would be a joy to say the story ends happily here. But then, I wouldn’t be blogging about it if life was that easy.

Oh no, after dutifully making all the payments, then came the fun of picking the thing up from the shop and bringing it home before the fat man in red rode again.

Well, not being one to learn from my mistakes apparently, I overlooked the obvious and neglected to take my Beloved along to help me collect it, didn’t I?

Arriving at the store I was informed that due to its large size I had to drive around to the loading dock to pick it up. Oh well, at least there’d be a storeman to load it in the back of the ute, I thought.

I thought too soon.

After pressing the buzzer to hail some assistance, how bemused was I to see what looked like a 12 year-old working the back dock (minimum pay doncha know), and not one who had enjoyed a lot of fatty foods, judging by the size of him. He took one look at the ticket and tells me I’ll have to help. Oh goody.

Afraid of breaking either the precious parcel or the storeboy (seriously, he didn’t deserve the title of storeman) I had to shoulder most of the load and then try to manoeuvre it into my Beloved’s Brumby (AKA a Subaru BRAT, and I can assure you it was a toss-up who fit the description best: the car or storeboy, given his continued commentary about how heavy it was).

It took quite some time before I was able to 1) shut the tailgate with the trampoline box safe inside, and 2) actually move my achy body enough to drive the car home.

Once I got here though, I did my best impression of an Olympic relay runner and passed the metaphorical baton to my Beloved for the assembly process in record time.

Needless to say that as soon as I saw him surrounded by countless plastic packages and paraphernalia (including instructions written in hieroglyphics, apparently) I figured that perhaps I’d had the easy end of things after all. He finally had the trampoline taking pride of place in our backyard, only to inform me he wasn’t sure what to do with all these bits left over.

But as I sit, with 49 sleeps, 13 hours, 51 minutes & 26 seconds until it’s Santa’s showtime once again, I’m happy to report that there have been no major injuries from last year’s gift (we never did figure out where the other bits went)…

…and I’m praying that this year, perhaps the kids will be asking for books!

Jx
©2009