Did you know that I like putting things together? I do. I love me an allen wrench. I love the diagrams, the washers. But most of all, I love completing something tangible. Maybe it’s a by-product of trafficking in ephemera (theatre) for most of my life. You put together a bookcase, and you get a bookcase for years and years. You put together a production of Three Sisters and you get some memories, a t-shirt and some good show photos. So yeah, I dig putting stuff together, which is why I was not afraid when my mother bought Boychild a 3ft tall car with a face, a horn and wheels that he can toodle around in. Her reasons for buying the car are sound:

Boychild asks every day to drive my dusty Subaru, so I let him pretend to steer. He turns on the hazards, f*cks up my stereo and presses every button in the car, so that when I get in it the next day, it’s always surprising what he’s managed to animate. The wipers are on, the dome lights are blinking, and somehow cheese crackers are stuffed into the vents, even though we haven’t had cheese crackers in three months.

Last week, we all three went to buy groceries. As Hubs and I went to and fro with bags of food and stuff, BC decided he wanted to drive. I said sure. In the time it took to haul a big-a$$ed thing of cat litter from the trunk of my car to the house (about 1min), this child had ferreted my car keys out from my purse and had them IN THE IGNITION when I caught him trying to start the car. Buying him his own car was a great idea, and props to my mom for thinking of it. *high five*

So what could go wrong? I like putting things together, BC loves cars, and I’m unemployed so I have plenty of time to do stuff like this. Also, it helps me procrastinate while also giving me purpose. I’m on board.

Have you ever tried to put something together in front of a 2.5 year old? If not, don’t. It’s awful. At first, it was all fine. Then, BC kept taking whatever item I was using and running off with it. Have you ever tried to neutralize a toddler holding a hammer? It’s not easy, especially since he thinks it’s a game. I’m chasing him, he’s running with the hammer, giggling. “I’m hamming” he says, clearing cats from the room. I’m praying to the dear sweet lord that he doesn’t trip and smash his noggin. Eventually, I reclaim the hammer only to have him grab a handful of tiny items and run off with them. Injury #1 happens when I bruised the palm of my hand beating the front headlights into place, only to realize that they weren’t fitting because they were not the headlights. They were the tail lights. Hey- those directions weren’t in color. How I’m supposed to know?

He was also consumed with trying to help by putting tiny screws into random holes. Injury #2 occured when I tried to fish out a rogue screw with my index finger by sticking it in a small hole. Now, I’m a grown woman, and I’ve never had my finger stuck to the point where I panicked. I’ve had rings stuck on my finger, sure. Once, when I was a kid, I stuck my finger in a dried bag of bean soup because they were so pretty. Then  I realized I was stuck and had to keep my finger there, like the little boy with his finger in the dike, lest the beans should rupture and flood the Piggly Wiggly. My mother found me in the aisle, sobbing, finger in the beans. Story of my life. But today was my true finger-stuck-panic day.

I flashed back to that movie with James Franco where the guy has to cut off his own arm to get out of the desert. I can’t move. I have a child sitting on me and a 3ft car stuck on my pointer finger. I then think “Windex” and then I think “We don’t have any Windex”. I was told that Windex can remove stuck rings on fingers, but I’ve never had to test it. Can Windex also remove happy-faced toy cars from a finger? We may never know, as I stupidly pulled my finger out, tearing the flesh from my knuckle joint and bleeding all over the car.

As BC is clamoring for me to put on the wheels, I realize that I’m missing pieces. I look at the diagram- “What the heck is a tophat? Is this it? I don’t see a tophat.” While I was focusing on bandaging my bloody finger, Boychild took those small, round items and threw them down our grate. Now, we live in a building from 1899, and the grate in our floor doesn’t move. It’s the old heating system and it’s here to stay. Anything thrown in the grate is gone. Fortunately, it’s not a long way down.  Cue Operation Magnet Men. I have these little rubber men with magnets on their feet and hands, so I took some kitchen twine and lowered a magnet man into the grate like a rescue diver in search of our missing pieces. It was tricky work, but the magnet men saved the tophats (and each other). However, the washers weren’t coming up. They were in a place where the magnet men kept sticking to the sides of the metal grate, so I couldn’t get them.  I had to change tactics. Commence Operation Doo-Doo Stick (a la Eddie Murphy), where I put some Playdoh on the end of the stick and poked it down in the grate. The operation was a success and I retrieved all of the pieces that I promptly stuck in my bra to keep Boychild’s little hands from grabbing them and throwing them in the cat box or God only knows where. While I am involved in Operation Magnet Men and Doo Doo Stick, I have a toddler getting in my face, demanding “lemme have it” while trying really hard to take the magnets and stick away from me as I delicately try to reclaim the items to complete HIS CAR. I feel closer to Buddhist monks and members of the bomb squad than I ever have before.

Injury #3 happened when I was hammering the ignition on the car and beat the crap out of my hand. I may have said some very naughty words. But I finished the car. Oh, and I also put the wheels on backwards, I think. Can’t undo it. Don’t really care. It’s done and it rolls, and BC is happy as a little clam.