Like I want to read this...take me home.
With some Pepto Bismol, I can actually tolerate this. I want to see the old stuff at Blogspot or in the Archives.
PART ONE
PART FOUR PART FIVE CONCLUSION
This
is the blog I always say I'm going to write, and then I repress the memory
once again. It's that awful.
It all began one winter evening. My son, my oldest, the one who has been with me the longest, needed to do a project for freshman history. The topic? Medieval! Broad assortment, a beautiful, nonspecific assortment of options. Options for projects are good! Family crests. Reports. Collages. Posters. Basically, anything went, up to and including...models...siege weapon models...with a medieval theme...theme music of PC war strategy games going through our minds... No guillotines, obviously, but...
Trebuchet. Heh heh heh. Yeah, trebuchet. It was either that or a battering ram, and with serious zero-tolerance policies, I didn't see the pointy object on the ram making it onto school property. Nothing like working hard for a zero. Looking back, though, I wonder if we shouldn't have just purchased a birdhouse, removed the bottom and some of the front and back, and made a pretend pointy object out of tinfoil. I'm sure the cost would have been that of just the birdhouse. Positive. But, stupid us, that was too easy.
We found a tennis-ball trebuchet instruction manual on the good ol' Internet. Tiger's Eye really needed the grade to be good. We had a lot of time to construct it, too. We were in good shape. We took the list to Home Depot and went to town.
Wood, we found, is pricier the smaller it gets. And we needed good wood in order for this to work. But, he really did need that grade, so I sucked it up and bought extra, because we might goof. Might.
There are various things required for Mr. Troubleshay. The .pdf file was amazing, amazing enough that it convinced us that we could do this! Hey, it went together with glue! It tossed tennis balls! Once we launched tennis balls, by gosh, we were going for eggs! The possibilities were endless. We took the list. I will comment about each, if necessary. It probably is:
(A) Steel rod, 5" long by 1/8" diameter. This is the "pin." It bends. That's nice. When it breaks, wire from hangers can be substituted.
(B) Pipe, two pieces each 1.58" long, inside diameter should be a slip fit over the 3/8" main axle. Did you see how precise that number is? I couldn't believe it. Neither could Home Depot. And, they didn't have a "pipe" that little. Do you know what's a good substitute? Honestly? I'll show you a picture and let you come up with a name for it before I tell you what they actually are.
Anyone care to hazard a guess? Anyone?
They are called...
NIPPLES.
Yes, nipples. Nipples!
Now, imagine taking your fifteen-year-old son to an aisle where about three yards by 10 feet high is devoted to nothing but nipples. I mean, it was bad enough, me being me, to root through nipple bags without gagging on my giggles. Try to avoid that word forever while trying to find the right one, especially when they're labeled! No, and they couldn't be in the right bins for the right size. No, some grubby-handed crack-showing man had his hands in there, copping feels on them, just throwing them aside when they weren't just what he wanted! Nipples. Yup. Nipples.
Yeah, and they come in adjustable and reducible nipples, too.
It got worse. I had one of those big roller thingies like the pros at Home Depot to carry all our supplies. The nipples wouldn't stay put. Tiger's Eye found the right opportunity to ask if he could put the nipples in his pocket. I had tears. Shopping for nipples is fun! Mom? Am I going to get a phone call from you soon? Fine. Next time, you get to take him nipple shopping.
(C) Steel rod, 17" by 3/8" diameter. Cut into three pieces. Yeah, but nobody at Home Depot could cut it. Then, when they found someone who could cut the rod, which fit snugly into its designated nipple, they said the machine was "broke." No problem. There's a really nice family-friendly hardware store nearby, but it was closed when I wanted to go shopping. I'm glad he was. I can just see poor Don explaining nipples to me and losing total respect for me. Don did cut my rod for me a while (we're getting to that) later. I sent Tiger's Eye in to see if he could cut down the nipple's length. I couldn't do it with a straight face. Don couldn't...I mean, he didn't have the ability to, um, shorten those particular pieces of trebuchet equipment. Yes, Mom. I'm sorry.
(D) Eye screws. I remember these. They were a lot less challenging than trying to find something to fit over the steel rod, but darned if I saw them after we put them in the house. I spent an hour looking for those things at 2:00 a.m. the night before it was due, and still haven't found them.
(E) Coffee can, 34.5 oz. This is so not a problem! No Home Depot required! That's what husbands are for!
(F) Wood glue. Again, not a problem! One of the staples of life after wood filler and Liquid Nails.
(G) Twine. Tiger's Eye and I argued over what kind of twine he needed. He wanted nylon. I, being the farmer's descendent that I am, wanted traditional hay-balin' twine. By the time we found it, Tiger's Eye quit arguing with me. It took us that long to find it, and after all that time, not even nipple jokes helped.
(H) 1/4" round molding 22" long. Optional**. **Never believe the optional part. It's like the anesthesiologist offering you a spinal with or without morphine for your C-section. I chose the no-morphine option, because I didn't want to pay for it later, and I had been through the spinal deal before. Duh. It's suggested for a reason, and when you find out the reason for it, it's very late and nobody's open or you're too late and nobody's open-minded.
(H2) 1/2" Velcro. Optional**. **See paragraph (H). Fortunately, we did have Velcro.
(I) Four key rings. Optional. For some reason, we got these when we saw Don to cut the rod. They hung on pegs right next to the register, and they were a quarter apiece. We saw these as a good idea. Optional didn't mean expensive in this case. I got a few more to make sure Alex's dog tags stay on his collar properly.
(J) Wood, 1 x 1 x 46, lots and lots. Lots and lots. Trauma on my wallet. Too much trauma--and trauma to me, trying to get those long, long wood pieces to the front of the store, after getting them out of the racks and stopping their fall with my head! I know what a nice bull at Pamplona feels like. At least the wood guy could cut them for us, unlike the steel rod guy, whose machine broke. Picking wood. Sizing wood. Deciding...
(K) Various tools. We had all of them. Personal note - did you know heavy duty wire cutters are called dikes? I think that's why he called them "heavy duty wire cutters" and put "dikes" in parentheses in the instructions. This is a politically correct tennis-ball trebuchet. We did pick up a few more clamps, just in case. You can never have too many clamps. It's like Liquid nails, wood glue, and filler. Add that to another list, would you?
We shall continue this later. Just the recollection is giving me heartburn.
(I know...when most people fuss, it doesn't take six webpages, but I'm special)
This story is so copyrighted! Reliving this trauma hasn't been cathartic. I'm on the schedule to see a shrink, so if you steal this and I find out about it, you'll be compacted into tennis ball size and launched. I won't need the trebuchet.
Sapphire wrote this. Sapphire Tigress has been around since 1992, when BBS was popular. I can prove it. My son can prove it. It's still in my mother's garage to prove it. A lot of impressed freshman can prove it. Please, just hand out the link. I lived through it. At least give me credit!
-30-
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