"Some" assembly required

I should have known.

At some level I guess I was in denial. When I picked up the 22 ton log-splitter at TSC a couple of weeks ago I somehow expected that when I opened up the 2' by 5' shipping crate a fully formed ready-to-go log-splitter would be smiling back at me.

Due to weather and inertia and other factors, it took me till today to pry that crate open, and did I ever get a shock! They've done a great job of cramming all the various parts in there, but none of them are attached one to another. Some assembly required.

No kidding.

Now, I don't want to quibble with the good folks at TSC, but nowhere on the journey to this piece of machinery was there any mention of assembly. Not in the flyer, not on the shipping crate; the point-of-purchase personnel didn't mention it. I thought, buy it, take it home, split wood.

Instead, I open this crate and there's a dozen independently bubble-wrapped packages jammed in there. Right away I've got a problem. The snow is flying up here at Falling Downs, so I have to make room in the garage for the assembly project.

I've noticed over the years that no matter how big the garage is you never have room to actually do any garage-worthy work. I had to move the drum kit, the treadmill, the snow-blower, three lawnmowers, and that vintage Toshiba TV with the Carver sound system before I had a little work space.

Then I figured I needed an extra set of hands, so I called Junior away from the X-box. That was an adventure in itself. His first observation is "it's cold out here."

Yes, Einstein, it is cold out here. It's called winter in Canada. Go get a coat.

Junior gets his coat, and he's back complaining about how it's still cold. Must say he was handy in getting the bigger bits of the puzzle off the truck, but holy moly, kids today struggle with the simplest things. "Make sure you put a flat washer in there."

"What's that?"

"That's a round piece of metal with a hole in it."

They can type 60 words per minute with just their thumbs but they don't know from a flat washer?

"Oh-oh, this washer's broken."

"That's called a lock-washer."

Explained to him the principle of how a lock-washer works. Didn't seem to impress him that much. Nevertheless we made slow steady progress on the assembly project, in spite of the constant whining about how his toes are cold. Don't need your toes to do this I told him. That didn't impress him either.

The most important thing I hope I modeled for him was that we got the damn thing together without so much as taking the instruction manual out of it's plastic covering. He learned about bearings and cotter pins and lock washers and so much other stuff, but the most important thing he learned is that the instruction manual is something the manufacturer throws in there just to cover their butt.

So it's all put together. Just need to run into town and pick up some hydraulic fluid. Oh, and hook up the hydraulic hoses of course. I kind of left it there. Four connections to make and I have to say I'm not 100% sure what goes where. Gonna have a little peek in the instruction manual.

But not while Junior's around.