Oh Chanukah- Some Assembly Required

"Oh Chanukah," he said exasperatedly. Ok, that is not really what I said and most of the time I don't refer to myself in the third person but tonight merited special attention.

You see the toy manufacturers have taken great care to make the acquisition of their toys to be one hell of an adventure. It is not just a matter of purchasing a toy and spending a few minutes assembling it, oh no, it is much more than that.

In order to assemble the toy you have to be able to remove it from the box and that is no easy feat. The box is sealed shut with tape and some sort of elephant snot glue and on the bigger boxes you can see that a welder took great care in making sure that the toy is sealed tighter than the hatch on Lost.

The nice thing about being a Taurus is that I may not have grace but I did receive the strength of the bull and I can usually work a little magic on whatever it is I need to open. The big trick is not destroying the contents of the package and more importantly great skill is required in making sure that the young children who are eagerly waiting to play with these toys do not learn any more colorful words than they may already know.

The good news is that it only took me 17 hours and three minutes to get the fercocketeh toy assembled. The bad news is that by the time it was done my children who are far smarter than I am had stolen my credit card and called ToysRus and placed an order for said unit fully assembled and ready to roll.

Under different circumstances the deliveryman might have been thrown out on their asses (I am a child of the '70s and did own the GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip) but my after 17 hours the Phillips screwdriver had become permanently attached to my left hand and right arm had lost its cunning and that was in spite of the picture of Jerusalem next to my bed.

So you'll forgive me if I end this here. It is awfully hard to type with my nose.