Sniglar Provides Valuable Life Lesson

Our legion of fan has voiced concern over the lack of blog entries lately. So Tim is cracking the whip and forcing me to sit up and write a post. I know this may seem a bit extreme, but Tim is still in the “Reign of Terror” phase of his patriarchal rule. He has an image to uphold.

Only eight days to go before the induction begins. I have read that released prisoners often have trouble adjusting to life on the outside, so I have been trying to prepare Alexander to make the transition to civilian life as well. I didn’t really know where to start, there is so much to tell him about. So I pulled out a dictionary and decided to just start at the beginning. So far, he is well versed on the letter “a” and knows what to do if he encounters an aardvark.



Those two dictionary entries took about 3 hours to explain, so there's no way we’d make all the way through Zymurgy before next Wednesday. Plus, I think I was over-explaining things and freaking him out. He may have a lifelong phobia of Arthur, the aardvark of PBS Kids fame, after everything I told him…


(Note: Arthur has suspiciously lost his aardvark nose over the years. Just another example of anti-aardvark propaganda in the media.)

Before more time was wasted or phobias created, I gave up on the dictionary approach to preparing Alexander for life on the outside. Plan B was to watch The Learning Channel (TLC) with the volume turned up. After eight hours of this, I realized that TLC is now little more than a reality TV station for people too embarrassed to watch reality TV on Fox. Makeover shows, Bridezilla shows, some comedy/horror show about the parents of septuplets… I think TLC needs to hand over that “L”. While entertaining, there is nothing to be learned here. So I’ll just call it The Channel, or TC, from now on.

So Plan A and Plan B had both failed to prepare Alexander for life on the outside. It was time for Plan C. Plan C was simple and elegant: I watched Tim assemble the Sniglar from IKEA. I tried to give Alexander a running narration (“He’s rolling his eyes. Now he is counting the number of screws again. He’s squinting his eyes at the instructions. Now he is laughing…and now crying.”) What better way to prepare for life in the real world than to observe your father trying to assemble cheap Swedish furniture following cartoon instructions?


Think of it as a metaphor for how things are out here: Simple and yet confusing, deceptively sturdy, and lacking English instructions. You are now ready for the real world, boy.