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Fort Frontier is open for business.
After roughly 64,000 hours under construction, my daughter's playset is now fully functional and awaiting hours and hours of swinging, sliding and general fort activity. And, due to the amount of time and effort that went into assembly, Allie will have to spend the next eight years playing nonstop to justify its construction.
I am kidding, of course. I cannot put a price on my daughter's happiness. Oh, wait, yes I can. That price? Whatever it would have cost to have someone else assemble Fort Frontier.
As I told you a few weeks ago, I was having a few difficulties, the main one being that I have the handyman skills of a tomato. Of the 8-14 hours that the company said it would take, I used 16 of them for step 1 of 25.
When I approached the first full weekend of construction, I sent out the call for support. Support with home projects can be done in two ways: (1) stand on your front porch and rev a circular saw or (2) stand on your front porch and, using a high powered megaphone, broadcast a beer being opened.
Either sound is a sirenic call that cannot be resisted by guys. (Note: Do NOT try both sounds. The last thing you want to do is take your severed, beer-clenching hand to the emergency room. You will be bumped WAY down on the triage list.)
In short time, I had a mini-army of people far more capable than I. Since we all had different talents, I decided to focus my skills on the areas most suitable for me, meaning I complained loudly about the directions and made sure everyone had a drink.
I was not alone in my disdain for the directions. On several occasions, there were arguments over whether the directions were upside down. On some of the drawings – which at first glance appeared to be detailed sketches of each step – there were mystery floating boards attached to nothing or boards that magically blended into other boards. It is good to see M.C. Escher is getting work these days.
At the completion of that day, we had actually created a fort. Granted, that was all we had completed. There were no walls, no swings, no slide. And, the area was strewn with gobs of nuts, bolts, screws, etc. Basically, it was a big platform with a sharp-object landing zone.
The next weekend, I knew I was going to have to make some great strides to complete Fort Frontier. My daughter was going nuts with anticipation. Every few minutes, she would ask if her swing set was ready. Sometimes, she would wake me up in the mornings with this question. I would tell her that I was working on it, roll over and go back to sleep. A few minutes later, I would be awakened with the exact same question, as if I had sleep walked to the back yard and completed it in four minutes.
On what would turn out to be the final day of construction, I headed out about 10:30 in the morning. I had only one assistant on this day, as it was down to two-man work. That and most everyone who had worked on the first round of Fort Frontier had gone insane from trying to read the directions. They were all sitting in their homes, rocking back and forth muttering, "L02 can't be put on H19, because S23 doesn't turn that way, and there ARE NO G41s!!! THERE ARE NO G41s!!!!"
A little after 4 p.m., the final foundation piece of Fort Frontier was raised. A few minutes later, swings were up and a slide was securely fastened. I hurriedly cleaned up the mess of metal debris around the fort and rushed inside to let Allie know that her swing set was finally ready.
"I'm having a juice box, Daddy," she said, as if I were interrupting a summit with Tony Blair.
Because I am bigger, faster and stronger than my daughter, I deftly snatched the juice box from her. "Come on!" I said, carrying her like an extra-large football.
When she finally stopped wailing, "MY JUICE BOX!!!!" she opened her eyes wide and a huge grin crept across her face. "WOW!!!!" she said, and quickly scurried up the fort, taking in all of the options before her. I am thrilled to see she loves Fort Frontier so much. She can tell me all about when she comes back inside in 2011.