This is going to be long. Maybe not that entertaining. Still, I have to vent.
Like many married persons, I seem to butt heads with my in-laws. Not all of them, my mother-in-law and her husband (stepfather-in-law) in particular. I've been with my wife since high school. I'll admit to starting off on the wrong foot with her mom - my wife lied to her, told her she was staying at a friends when in fact we were getting to know each other in the biblical sense. She got caught and so began a history of, as far as they're concerned, me versus them.
Fast-forward to 4 years ago. My wife (of 1 year now) is pregnant and we're buying our first home. She asks if they'll help out. All is going well enough.
Real quick, something to know about her stepfather, Brent - he's the world's worst communicator. I'm not the best at it but I know how to be personable, how to talk to people in general. I'm shy but I'm not rude.
One house-related project was installing a laminate floor. I'm not the handiest of men so I certainly expected Brent to lead the way, even though he'd never taken on such a project before (and no, it's not difficult). We get started together, break for the day and plan to reconvene the following morning. I have a lot going on besides the floor. I'm running late the next day. I arrive to find him nearly finished. I'm livid because there are places where he's cut corners, so to speak, and quite frankly it looks bad.
Now, had I been there, the same thing may have happened. It may have still looked bad when we finished. However, I'd have had some input. It would've been my own doing. I expressed my distaste for his starting and nearly finishing without me. He left, mad. I was supposed to be appreciative. Instead I was frustrated. He could have called, he could have just left or he could have shown some patience and waited an hour or so for me. This ended with me realizing that I might have been a little harsh and ultimately calling to apologize.
To this day, they still hold that incident against me (according to my wife). It wasn't easy for me to apologize but at the time it felt like the right thing to do. Apparently it didn't make a difference. My wife still hears about it.
In the meantime I've managed to offend them in various ways. I hear about this through my wife. Her mom says that she just has to accept the fact that she and I will never be close - she doesn't know how to talk to me. I don't really know what this means. In general, I'm a man of few words. If we have very little in common, that is compounded. I don't, however, make it a point to fight with them. I get along fine with the rest of her family. Both sides.
Present day. My wife has been on me for 2 years to put a swingset in the backyard. I've kept putting it off because we're not that far from some very nice playgrounds. Neither of us see the point in putting up something small either. It might get played with sure, but the kids (we now have two, age four and almost two) would likely grow out of it. This Christmas she convinced me, albeit with a bit of manipulation. My daughter's old enough and my wife said "swing" enough times that my daughter was really looking forward to Santa bringing one.
We've priced and looked at the Rainbow swingsets several times. They are large and expensive. Very expensive. We decided those were out but I was still dragging my feet on exactly what to do. So, she gets her mom and stepfather on board. She also gets my mom and stepfather on board. At first it was mostly from a financial standpoint though. Instead of buying a lot of little presents, help out with a swingset. My plan was to have something engraved with all of our names on it and put it someplace on the set. It was also my hope that all of us would have some hand in helping build it.
Brent, my wife's stepfather, is pretty handy with wood. He's built us some pretty nice pieces. His attitude just blows. Now that he's on board to help with the set, he wants to get started ASAP. He finds and advertisement for plans in one of his magazines and convinces my wife to buy them. She does, without running it by me first. $50 for plans. At that point I'm deadset on building something from the plans (it has multiple setups, like 15, configurations to pick from). While first reading through the plans, I'm pretty intimidated if not downright confused. Eventually they start to make sense. At nearly 96 pages, I can understand that it takes time to digest. Brent on the other hand decides there are not enough pictures and proclaims the plans too difficult to understand.
Essentially the plans are laid out as follows:
1) Decide which set you want to build and what components (e.g. fort, tower, monkey bars, rock wall, etc)
2) Review the list of materials for each component - the wood and hardware required are spelled out nicely.
3) Pre-cut all wood, in the order specified. Make additional cuts (rounding, etc) as required. Label each as you go (labels provided - FF1, RR2, tha kind of thing- meaning front, rear and so forth).
4) Mark and pre-drill parts as indicated.
5) Assemble
While I'm getting very familiar with the plans, Brent is not. I make it clear that I understand them and that I would like to be around to help get the project started (knowing full well he'd go off on his own if allowed).
The weekend rolls around, the wood's been purchased and we're ready to start. He's adamant about not building the kit first. He wants to cut, drill and bolt the thing together as we go. Having spent over $600 on wood alone, this does not sound like a wise idea to me. I convince him to pre-cut the wood at least but he still insists on not pre-drilling. I decide to fight that battle later. As we're cutting the wood, it becomes clear, to me, that following the directions is a good idea. He questions the size of the braces we cut because he has a pile of small pieces. I tell him and he grumbles that they could have been cut from those scraps. What he doesn't realize is that I still need 5 small pieces for something else. At one point I need a piece cut to 30-1/8". Low and behold he has a piece already cut to length. The directions are that precise. Surely that would convince him.
Before we finish cutting all of the pieces his pricey miter saw burns up. I can't be sure, but I think it was acting up early on. I think nothing of it. We use a table saw for a bit before calling it a day. I spend some time going through our parts check list, getting a handle on where we're at and what we have left. The plan is to start again Monday.
Monday arrives. I get to his house and go figure, half of the thing is built (in his garage). I'm not entirely surprised. I am however frustrated. I notice that places where only 1 bolt was required have two, some are crooked and it just generally looks unprofessional. I can't understand his logic. I bite my tongue, mostly, and we proceed. Also, we have another helper. A step-uncle. Not my mom, not my stepfather (they were working, I had the day off, Brent does not have a job right now). Brent asks "what's next" and I'm lost. I'm going from page 20 with drilling instructions to page 56 where a picture of what might be next exists to page 35 where everything is written out. It's confusing, error prone. I express my concern several times until he says more to me than he has to date:
"We don't work well together on projects. This will be the last project we work on together."
I'm somewhat surprised by this. Sure I was upset by the "progress" he'd made and the cluster-fucked state of the project but I ask - what about the other day? Weren't we kicking some butt? He goes on to tell me how, had we done it his way, piece-meal style, then his saw wouldn't have burnt up. I think my jaw dropped.
So while he and the uncle are trying to bolt shit together with vice grips and ladders, I'm trying to mark where the other big structure needs to be drilled. You see, instead of having the kit made - cut, labeled and drilled - we're now putting this thing together on the fly. In his garage - 20 miles from the actual site. His plan is to put it on a flatbed with a tractor and move it. He doesn't want to work in the cold, afterall. Nothing that comes out of his mouth makes much sense to me.
Noon rolls around and I have to go pick up my kid from preschool. He asks if I'm coming back. I say sure, if you want me to. At that point I don't think the day's events had really sunk in. I leave. On my way back to his house my wife calls. Brent has an appointment (3 hours later) and it wouldn't make sense to come back out. I turn around. That was the last time I've been out there. The thing is almost "done" now. I had time to process what had happened and became very angry about the whole situation. For starters he never called to let me know when he'd planned to start working on it again (and made clear it didn't really matter if I was there or not).
So now there's going to be a huge ass swingset in my backyard for my kids to play on. It was supposed to have been from US. Built by their family. I became so familiar with the plans before we started that I was truly looking forward to the project. I figured if we stuck to the directions, especially given how large in scale the thing was, we wouldn't have anything to argue about. It wasn't my way, it wasn't his way. Wrong.
Like many married persons, I seem to butt heads with my in-laws. Not all of them, my mother-in-law and her husband (stepfather-in-law) in particular. I've been with my wife since high school. I'll admit to starting off on the wrong foot with her mom - my wife lied to her, told her she was staying at a friends when in fact we were getting to know each other in the biblical sense. She got caught and so began a history of, as far as they're concerned, me versus them.
Fast-forward to 4 years ago. My wife (of 1 year now) is pregnant and we're buying our first home. She asks if they'll help out. All is going well enough.
Real quick, something to know about her stepfather, Brent - he's the world's worst communicator. I'm not the best at it but I know how to be personable, how to talk to people in general. I'm shy but I'm not rude.
One house-related project was installing a laminate floor. I'm not the handiest of men so I certainly expected Brent to lead the way, even though he'd never taken on such a project before (and no, it's not difficult). We get started together, break for the day and plan to reconvene the following morning. I have a lot going on besides the floor. I'm running late the next day. I arrive to find him nearly finished. I'm livid because there are places where he's cut corners, so to speak, and quite frankly it looks bad.
Now, had I been there, the same thing may have happened. It may have still looked bad when we finished. However, I'd have had some input. It would've been my own doing. I expressed my distaste for his starting and nearly finishing without me. He left, mad. I was supposed to be appreciative. Instead I was frustrated. He could have called, he could have just left or he could have shown some patience and waited an hour or so for me. This ended with me realizing that I might have been a little harsh and ultimately calling to apologize.
To this day, they still hold that incident against me (according to my wife). It wasn't easy for me to apologize but at the time it felt like the right thing to do. Apparently it didn't make a difference. My wife still hears about it.
In the meantime I've managed to offend them in various ways. I hear about this through my wife. Her mom says that she just has to accept the fact that she and I will never be close - she doesn't know how to talk to me. I don't really know what this means. In general, I'm a man of few words. If we have very little in common, that is compounded. I don't, however, make it a point to fight with them. I get along fine with the rest of her family. Both sides.
Present day. My wife has been on me for 2 years to put a swingset in the backyard. I've kept putting it off because we're not that far from some very nice playgrounds. Neither of us see the point in putting up something small either. It might get played with sure, but the kids (we now have two, age four and almost two) would likely grow out of it. This Christmas she convinced me, albeit with a bit of manipulation. My daughter's old enough and my wife said "swing" enough times that my daughter was really looking forward to Santa bringing one.
We've priced and looked at the Rainbow swingsets several times. They are large and expensive. Very expensive. We decided those were out but I was still dragging my feet on exactly what to do. So, she gets her mom and stepfather on board. She also gets my mom and stepfather on board. At first it was mostly from a financial standpoint though. Instead of buying a lot of little presents, help out with a swingset. My plan was to have something engraved with all of our names on it and put it someplace on the set. It was also my hope that all of us would have some hand in helping build it.
Brent, my wife's stepfather, is pretty handy with wood. He's built us some pretty nice pieces. His attitude just blows. Now that he's on board to help with the set, he wants to get started ASAP. He finds and advertisement for plans in one of his magazines and convinces my wife to buy them. She does, without running it by me first. $50 for plans. At that point I'm deadset on building something from the plans (it has multiple setups, like 15, configurations to pick from). While first reading through the plans, I'm pretty intimidated if not downright confused. Eventually they start to make sense. At nearly 96 pages, I can understand that it takes time to digest. Brent on the other hand decides there are not enough pictures and proclaims the plans too difficult to understand.
Essentially the plans are laid out as follows:
1) Decide which set you want to build and what components (e.g. fort, tower, monkey bars, rock wall, etc)
2) Review the list of materials for each component - the wood and hardware required are spelled out nicely.
3) Pre-cut all wood, in the order specified. Make additional cuts (rounding, etc) as required. Label each as you go (labels provided - FF1, RR2, tha kind of thing- meaning front, rear and so forth).
4) Mark and pre-drill parts as indicated.
5) Assemble
While I'm getting very familiar with the plans, Brent is not. I make it clear that I understand them and that I would like to be around to help get the project started (knowing full well he'd go off on his own if allowed).
The weekend rolls around, the wood's been purchased and we're ready to start. He's adamant about not building the kit first. He wants to cut, drill and bolt the thing together as we go. Having spent over $600 on wood alone, this does not sound like a wise idea to me. I convince him to pre-cut the wood at least but he still insists on not pre-drilling. I decide to fight that battle later. As we're cutting the wood, it becomes clear, to me, that following the directions is a good idea. He questions the size of the braces we cut because he has a pile of small pieces. I tell him and he grumbles that they could have been cut from those scraps. What he doesn't realize is that I still need 5 small pieces for something else. At one point I need a piece cut to 30-1/8". Low and behold he has a piece already cut to length. The directions are that precise. Surely that would convince him.
Before we finish cutting all of the pieces his pricey miter saw burns up. I can't be sure, but I think it was acting up early on. I think nothing of it. We use a table saw for a bit before calling it a day. I spend some time going through our parts check list, getting a handle on where we're at and what we have left. The plan is to start again Monday.
Monday arrives. I get to his house and go figure, half of the thing is built (in his garage). I'm not entirely surprised. I am however frustrated. I notice that places where only 1 bolt was required have two, some are crooked and it just generally looks unprofessional. I can't understand his logic. I bite my tongue, mostly, and we proceed. Also, we have another helper. A step-uncle. Not my mom, not my stepfather (they were working, I had the day off, Brent does not have a job right now). Brent asks "what's next" and I'm lost. I'm going from page 20 with drilling instructions to page 56 where a picture of what might be next exists to page 35 where everything is written out. It's confusing, error prone. I express my concern several times until he says more to me than he has to date:
"We don't work well together on projects. This will be the last project we work on together."
I'm somewhat surprised by this. Sure I was upset by the "progress" he'd made and the cluster-fucked state of the project but I ask - what about the other day? Weren't we kicking some butt? He goes on to tell me how, had we done it his way, piece-meal style, then his saw wouldn't have burnt up. I think my jaw dropped.
So while he and the uncle are trying to bolt shit together with vice grips and ladders, I'm trying to mark where the other big structure needs to be drilled. You see, instead of having the kit made - cut, labeled and drilled - we're now putting this thing together on the fly. In his garage - 20 miles from the actual site. His plan is to put it on a flatbed with a tractor and move it. He doesn't want to work in the cold, afterall. Nothing that comes out of his mouth makes much sense to me.
Noon rolls around and I have to go pick up my kid from preschool. He asks if I'm coming back. I say sure, if you want me to. At that point I don't think the day's events had really sunk in. I leave. On my way back to his house my wife calls. Brent has an appointment (3 hours later) and it wouldn't make sense to come back out. I turn around. That was the last time I've been out there. The thing is almost "done" now. I had time to process what had happened and became very angry about the whole situation. For starters he never called to let me know when he'd planned to start working on it again (and made clear it didn't really matter if I was there or not).
So now there's going to be a huge ass swingset in my backyard for my kids to play on. It was supposed to have been from US. Built by their family. I became so familiar with the plans before we started that I was truly looking forward to the project. I figured if we stuck to the directions, especially given how large in scale the thing was, we wouldn't have anything to argue about. It wasn't my way, it wasn't his way. Wrong.
