PART ONE    PART TWO    PART THREE    PART FOUR    PART FIVE    CONCLUSION

So...where were we?

Ah, yes.  I was a failure.  My son didn't say it, but he looked defeated as we climbed into the car the next morning.  We drove to the school, observing the patches of receding ice and saying very little.  I promised him a nifty throwing thing.  He got a model.  He wasn't mad at me; I know that.  We just tried so hard and all we got was the model.  We could've built a model treb out of cardboard.  That's a model.  We built a trebuchet--it just didn't work...any more.   

We parked, and then divvied up what we should carry.  I took the frame and he the baggie, coffee can, and throwing assembly (pouch, pin, etc).  As everyone looked upon us with great interest and outright surprise, a little voice in the back of my head said, "Yeah, you could look that way if it actually worked."

Climbing the stairs with a light but bendable and already nearly broken frame proved tricky, and I said something to my son about not picking anyone's nose with the spike on the throwing arm.  Outside Mr. R's room, two girls sat, and one gasped.

"Is that a...trebuchet?" she asked, her freckled face looking quite stunned.

I was impressed.  I had no clue what a trebuchet was until Age Of Whatever part 15 or so, a PC console game.  That made us feel better, just a model or no. 

The real test waited inside the classroom.  You see, he graciously gave us an extension.  If it didn't deliver on the "wow" factor I hinted at, my son's grade would suffer!

My son walked in first with me right behind him.  Mr. R sat at a desk in the back of his classroom, looking over the projects already completed and presented.  His eyes traveled down the long throwing arm of the treb and then past it to me, who carried the duct-taped frame gingerly.

"Oh."  The smile started in the corners of his eyes from behind his glasses.  "NOW I see why you needed more time."

I nodded.  "Yeah.  We started out good until the power went out."

Tiger's Eye mumbled something to Mr. H that I didn't hear; I was searching for a space in the classroom to accommodate the frame.  I hated it.  I put it on the ground and it wobbled!  I fussed with the tape already on the frame and got it almost flat, and lined it up as best I could.  I heard the nipples and rods rattle as Tiger's Eye put them on the ground next to us, and I double-checked the loop-de-loop pin placer at the front and strengthened the twister ties.

"Good luck with your presentation," I said.

"I think he liked it," he replied.

"It's a good model, at the very least," I said.

He smiled.  He got it.  We did everything right with the resources we had.  I think he understood it before I did.  What else differently could we have done?  We had every reason to be proud of that thing.  Every reason.

I left him, much more confident than I was when we climbed those stairs.

I went back to my routine, after a nap.  Trebuchets on insane deadlines require hours and hours of unscheduled time, and especially ours.  I napped, and left the house.  When I came back, I entered the kitchen from the carport.

Tiger's Eye waited for me.  His grin lit up my life.

"You got an A!" I exclaimed.

"Yes!" he said, and paused, his eyes shining more. 

He then uttered two words, two words rival to those awesome three words (like "it's a boy!" or "it's a girl!" or "I bought chocolate!" or, um, oh--"I Love You!")

He said:

"It worked."

It took me a minute and I looked at him with my left eyebrow lifted.

"It worked?" I said, hope prompting me to clasp my hands in front of my chest in prayer.

"It worked!"

I staggered back against the dishwasher.  "What?  How?"

"We had three presentations to do.  He said we had three, and one of them he was very interested in seeing, then he looked right at me.  I got nervous."

"'Kay?"

"So, I had trouble putting it together.  I didn't want the frame to bend anymore, and I was trying to explain the parts and things.  Everyone had questions, Mom.  They kept asking me things.  I showed them the nipples."

Of course.  I expected that one, but snickered anyway, my stomach one happy bubbling gurgling quivering organ of delight.

"Yes?" I prompted him.

"I got it put all together, you know.  It looked pretty straight.  I was explaining how it worked and how the coffee can swung through to make it throw.  I straightened the frame a bit, and then Mr. R handed me a stress ball."

"And it worked?"

"Yeah.  It went around and over and tossed."

"Did you break anything?"

He laughed.  "No."

"Darn," I said.  "But it worked?"

"It worked."

"It worked!" 

I danced around the kitchen like a fool, "it worked...ah.aa.haaa, it worked."  Clap clap. 

I looked at my son one more time for confirmation.  "It worked?"

"Yes, Mom!  It worked!"

"Awesome!"  I ditched the kitchen and ran for the phone, just to let everyone know!  "It worked!" started at least three phone calls. 

So, before we go any further, I want you to go here:  This is Ripcord's "Gallery of Success."  Seriously.  Please look through all those amazing pictures before you look at ours. 

I'm waiting.

Aren't they cool? 

So...

This is ours.  I forgot to mention that we also used duct tape to hold together a few cracks and then drilled through it, too, for stability.  We are SO not in Ripcord's gallery, other than for emotional success, and I think there's an DSM-IV psychiatric code for that. 

Okay.  Here we go. 

This is our frame and our counterweight, and that's the throwing arm propped against the trash can. 

Above, a close-up of the coffee-can counterweight. 

Do I really have to explain what those are?  Have we gone through this enough yet?

See the black marks at the ends?  That's where we tried to mark them off at precise 1.58", took them to the hardware store, and found that our erstwhile Don, King of Hardware, didn't have the propensity for sleeve adjustment, which is the correct way of saying "Nipple Reconstruction Surgery." 

Okay!  Enough about those things.  But, this is where they end up:

See? There's one on each side of the throwing arm, right between the two red pieces of duct tape.  They act as spacers, so we had to gouge the wood a little, which split it a little, and that's why the duct tape actually is nailed in between the two small pieces of wood. 

Love the socks?  I don't...now.  They were a perfectly good pair!

See the trough?  I promised you a nice red one in the story.  Yes, I did.  Somehow, the trough didn't make it into storage at Mom's.  It might be in the back of the minivan, as far as I know, along with the french fries, poptart wrappers, 16-oz soda bottles, coloring books, and smushed-up cookies that inevitably get under there while raising kids, and then you're really nice, buy a new minivan, and give the old one to your husband.  It works out nicely. 

So, we couldn't find the nice duct-taped and quite-attractive trough.  I panicked, naturally.  It just seemed like we made this trebuchet to thoroughly stick its tongue out me for eternity! 

My mother helped us look for a while, and then asked what we needed.  I told her that its purpose was to serve as something somewhat slick to help slide and direct the projectile.  She picked up two Avon box tops and spliced them together with the grey duct tape, gave the length a good karate chop, folded it, and put it where it was supposed to go.

Yeah.  I felt that stupid.  I learned my lesson.  Mom's been a mom as long as I've been alive.  When you get to be a grandma, then and only then do you reach project-building goddess status.  I defer to her greatness and am honored to be the sapphire birthstone in her mother's ring. 

Maybe she'll read that and forgive me for the "sleeve" comments. 

The lovely model for our trebuchet arm is my sister, Atch.  She's good for size comparison, too.  You see, she's all of 4'11" (although she'll tell you she's taller), and part elf.  By the comparison, you can kind of see how hard it is to maneuver in narrow classroom halls.

I just wanted to remind you of the strategic use of water bottle caps.  Reduce, reuse, and recycle.  They worked perfectly for spacers.  Underneath the rod, there, is a baggie of what used to be wet plaster of paris, a baggie of dry plaster of paris, and some rocks we got from the lot during our filming attempts.

Now, for the bane of my existence, the cause of the treb tipping completely over with a sickening crunch.  This is what happens, kids, when you lose your eye screws.

Yeah, it's that bad.

Love the sock, babe.  Those were good socks, too.  The nice THICK kind.

But, in the end, this is what you get.

Despite the many long months it has spent alone, banished to let us repress and heal, it still stands, goes together, and swings.  We plan to test it with water balloons soon.  Then, maybe eggs. 

Maybe.

If you have any questions or comments on this for either my son or me, please visit our Interactive Comment forum.  It's a threaded board hosted by Sitegadgets.

If you've made it this far, I hope you've enjoyed this insane diatribe.  I hope you understand the power of two little words...

IT WORKED!

I'd like to remind the thieving heathens of this world that this work is copyrighted by Sapphire Tigress, owner of this website. I don't know who in their rightly mind would try to claim this as his or hers or hers or his, but please don't. 

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