‘Easy-to-assemble’ tent a job for nuclear physicists

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/07/2019 (2617 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Someone once famously said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Most people seem to think Albert Einstein is the person who famously said this, but based on several minutes of intense online research, that turns out to be a myth.

Which leads me to my favourite Einstein quote, which you frequently see on old-school posters featuring the famous physicist and his signature haircut: “I didn’t say half the stuff that people say I did!”

The quote on the posters doesn’t actually use the word “stuff,” but this is a family newspaper and I am not about to put salty language in the mouth of a man who was arguably the greatest genius in history.

What I’m trying to say here is that I was thinking of that oft-quoted definition of insanity over the weekend as my wife, my daughter and I spent several hours cursing and sweating in the backyard as we attempted to set up an “easy-to-put-up” screen tent my spouse purchased last summer.

My wife bought this thing last year because she wanted something to shield us from the sun and mosquitoes the size of Land Rovers. It came with “easy-to-follow” instructions that, in my view, were written by nuclear physicists for nuclear physicists.

I have no problem acknowledging that, despite being a regulation guy of my gender, I am totally and utterly useless when it comes to the manly art of putting things together.

I took shop class back in high school and no matter what project we were supposed to assemble — a table, a chair, a V-8 engine for a 1967 Mustang convertible — mine always came out looking like a (bad word) ashtray.

It was more than a little embarrassing, especially when it came time to present the do-it-yourself project to my mother in the form of a thoughtful gift.

Me: “Here, mom, look what I made for you.”

My mom: “Thank you, son. You know I don’t smoke, right?”

Me: “It’s a chair.”

My mom: “Oh.”

In contrast, my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, is somewhat smug about her ability to field strip a toilet and put it back together in less than 15 minutes. She is the sort of woman who thinks power tools are a much better Christmas gift than scented candles.

Getting back to our story, last summer, we were struggling mightily to put up my wife’s new easy-to-put-up tent. At the time, we were aided by our niece, Amelia, and her new husband, Arthur, who happens to be a brilliant mechanical engineer.

My role consisted largely of offering helpful comments such as “Why did you buy such a (bad word) stupid tent in the first place?” and “You would need a team of NASA scientists to put up this (bad word) tent!”

We found it impossible to get the tent poles to extend properly and snap into place, which is when our niece, in a moment of sudden insight, stared up at the ceiling and chirped, “I hate to say it, but I think we’re trying to put it up inside out!”

She was right. Minutes later, after glancing at the instructions, her engineer/husband had reversed the whole shebang and — PRESTO! — the tent was soon right-side out.

You would think that would have been a teachable moment, and that having attempted to put up a tent inside out once was a mistake you would never ever make again. Ha ha ha.

In case that bit of dramatic foreshadowing has not clued you in to what happened this weekend, I will lay it out for you. There we were, sweating like Thanksgiving turkeys in the backyard, cursing under our breath because we could not figure out why the easy-to-put-up tent again refused to be put up.

Then, something occurred to me. My mind flashed back to the fiasco last summer. “You know what I think…” I began to say, which is when my wife and daughter, in unison, said something like “BE QUIET! WE ARE TRYING TO THINK! YOU ARE THE WORST AT PUTTING THINGS TOGETHER!”

So, we continued to struggle and curse and the tent defied all efforts to be pieced together. Foolishly, I once again tried to offer a brilliant insight: “I really think we are…” I said, and once again was roundly ignored as the tent literally collapsed on our heads.

After about 45 minutes of stress and anxiety and ripping small holes in the tent’s fabric, my spouse finally struggled out of the mangled tent and looked in dismay at the mess of fabric and poles puddled on the lawn.

Which is when — and I swear this is exactly how it happened — my wife’s eyes grew to the size of manhole covers and she loudly groaned: “OHMYGAWD! WE PUT IT UP INSIDE OUT! AGAIN!”

And, of course, we had. Within minutes of figuring this out, my wife and daughter had reversed everything and safely erected the somewhat worse-for-wear tent right-side out, with the poles on the exterior, which is what is clearly shown in the directions if anyone cares about that sort of thing.

My wife and daughter thought it was pretty funny that, for two years in a row, we had managed to assemble an easy-to-set-up tent with the outside on the inside. Unlike the tent poles, my nose was seriously out of joint.

“You know,” I grunted, scowling at my wife, “I knew that we were doing it the wrong way again.”

My wife just smiled. “Well, honey,” she said in the sort of tone you would use if you were addressing a potted plant. “You really should have said something.”

I thought about saying something right then, but I didn’t. I may not be Einstein, but I’m not going to do anything that crazy.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca