Hell's Kitchen

Dear Laney,

For your birthday, your dad and I bought you the Melissa & Doug Cozy Corner Kitchen, pictured above. It got great reviews on Amazon, but I did notice that most of the commenters took the time to mention how difficult it is to assemble. Warning ignored. Toy purchased.

You were SO good on our trip to Colorado - you almost never cried or complained, and were a complete delight to be around - that I wanted to do something nice for you in return. I decided that I would assemble the kitchen six weeks early. After all, you'd earned it.

While Dad was at work yesterday, I hauled the box out of hiding. I remembered that some parents had found it difficult to assemble, but I figured I could do it by myself in no time at all. "After all," I thought, "I'm smarter than the average bear."

As it turns out, it took me so long to put the dang thing together that average bears would be embarrassed to associate with me. Great golly molly, the instruction manual had pages like this:

It had 98 screws in 21 assorted sizes. Not for the first time, I wondered how my degree in drama was going to help me in a real-world situation.

An hour into the process, I thought, "Thor could probably assemble an ACTUAL oven in less time than this is taking." At hour #2, I thought, "I could probably hand Uncle Nate a hatchet, point him towards a tree, and watch him whittle an oven in less time than this." A little past hour #3, I put the finishing touches on the thing and walked away.

I didn't shoot video of myself assembling the kitchen, but if I had, it would have looked EXACTLY like this:

Totally worth it, though, if only to see you fall in love with the kitchen timer that I could have bought pre-assembled for two bucks.

Love,

Mom