Some Assembly Required

I’d like to take a moment to thank my punky kid brother for the wisdom he showed in being born fully 5 years after me.  Don’t get me wrong, there were times when his youngerness was a pain in various and sundry parts of my anatomy (like when he would leer at our Barbies or encourage Mom to serve carrots…ick).  However, because he was so very younger than I, I developed a skill set in serving him that I never knew would be so valuable to me as an adult.

The youngest of eight and one of two male bookends to boot, the poor boy had a lot going against him (e.g., girly hand-me-downs, constant mothering, etc.)  Probably his biggest liability now is that we all remember things about him he’d just as soon the world forget.  For instance: as a young boy in a house brimming with girls, he would walk from the shower in my parents’ room to his own bedroom/Fortress of Solitude, one towel wrapped up around his armpits and the other wrapped about his head, turban-style.  This practice continued well into his teen years.  (I provide this example as the most innocuous, hoping he will let it slide.) 

But aside from these amusing memories with which I regale my own children (and now an audience rife with strangers) my brother provided me with assembly abilities I will not soon forget.  The original Star Wars trilogy and its accompanying merchandise boom debuted when the boy was about 6 yrs old.  My Star-Wars-struck brother and his best friend became the recipients of a veritable cornucopia of some-assembly-required playthings.  The Millennium Falcon, X-Wing, Landspeeder, Death Star Space Station complete with working Trash Compactor: all these had to be put together by someone and that someone was me.  I became quite adept at putting tab 3 into slot C, attaching background stickers, and cross checking instructions with available supplies.  So much so that by the time I was in my mid-teens I fully expected Dr. David R. Scott (then Center Director of NASA) to contact me personally requesting my assistance with their tabs, slots, stickers, and instructions. 

Turns out I was mistaken about the whole NASA thing (their loss).  But that was okay.  Not many years later my skills found their true purpose in life the day I entered my first IKEA, Land of Assembly Enchantment.  I can assemble the 3-drawer red IKEA dresser in 90 minutes flat.  The IKEA white vanity table complete with oval mirror gave me a run for my money, sure, but ultimately cried “uncle,” and now reflects my niece’s lovely face each morning.  I once threw down with a particularly tricky IKEA coffee table, emerged victorious, and I don’t even drink coffee.  So I want to say thank you, punky kid brother!  Thank you for being a tiny little guy with a great big love for Star Wars, without which my own son would have no choice but to live in a bedroom with clothing strewn about the floor.  Thanks to you, brother, my boy’s clothing can now gloriously cascade out of his drawers and down the front of his snappy red dresser instead, pooling on the rug and branching out to cover every square inch of space.