The Great Lego Caper of 07

December 16, 2007

Because Pauline and I were going to England for Christmas and Jon was going to Palm Springs, we had arranged an early Christmas gift opening. Kaleb was delighted with the prospect of opening gifts early. Kaleb was an expert on Starwars and he seemed to know not only the name of every single character but also all of the crazy machinery in the series. He had told Santa precisely what he wanted and our having a direct line of communication to Santa allowed Pauline and I to wrap a Lego Starwars clone transporter. Jon and Liz had brought a few gifts including two more Starwars Lego ships that were also on Kaleb's endless wish list. In addition there was a Sponge Bob and an electronic Whoopee cushion (”fart” machine) that would sound off an endless variety of farts by remote control. The electronic whoopee cushion is another story. 

He was quite happy with his toys, having unwrapped all of them in about eight seconds. Immediately he began assembling the 20 odd clones, while I sat helplessly looking at 10 bags of plastic parts (nearly 1400 parts) that seemed to have no logic whatsoever. There were no word instructions, and two large books illustrated nearly four hundred steps, each involving the location of three or four parts, some almost microscopic in size. I looked over at Jon to see if he had any ideas, and said, “Jon, I don’t have a clue what to do next.”; He looked as clueless and forlorn as I felt.

Kaleb, growing impatient, suggested we open all the bags and dump them in a pile, and it took some effort to prevent what I considered to be a disaster in the making. Finally from the first few pictures I reasoned that his idea was not far off. Maybe he had done this before. Lego was suggesting we avoid carpets and sort the parts on a table by either color, shape, or both. Why hadn’t they already done this? Apparently this is part of the Lego adventure.  After spending an hour sorting we were able to assemble one of the small vehicles, about fifty parts, that went with the set.  With this I felt a new confidence and began taking on the larger structure. Jon took this as a good place to exit since he was studying for his final exams at Cal State Long Beach.

In the excitement noon had passed without notice and we had forgotten lunch so I decided to celebrate our progress with a lunch break. Kaleb was not particularly interested in lunch but with a small amount of pressure he reluctantly joined us anyway, at least for a while. After finishing two and a half of his usual four chicken nuggets he passed on the corn, macaroni, and roll completely before racing back to set up a base camp for the clones. His assembly evolved from a child’s limitless imagination into bowls of food for the clones and small buildings, produced from parts intended by Lego to be radio dishes, headlamps, and sides of the troop carrier. This created a new problem for my assembly operation.

 After several fruitless searches for a part I needed, I began to realize that he had already found an important use for that part, a piece of clone food. After some negotiation he agreed to give up the parts. 

I had promised his mom that I would have him home by 3 PM and we were running out of time. We had to pack up the pieces after just beginning the assembly. He desparately wanted to take it home with him, and it was not hard to determine that this was not negotiable. So, after many promises not to lose any parts or take them all out of the baggies, we passed the problem on to his mom and other grandparents.

 At this stage I can imagine several ways that this story can end. It is conceivable that he will return with all the parts and we can assemble the troop carrier. The box states that the toy is for children between the ages of 8 to 11. Since Kaleb is 7, it could be that we would complete it while he is still in that age bracket, but I don’t guarantee that. A second outcome is that his other grandfather would assembly it. A third outcome is that he would pour all the pieces out on the floor, continue building his clone base, lose a few vital parts, and the clone carrier would never see the light of day. If I were a betting man, I would probably bet on the third outcome.

 I hope to add a footnote updating the progress on this at a future date. In the meantime, we still have two more Starwars crafts to build that never came out of the boxes. Between the two boxes, there are only nine hundred parts so this should be a cakewalk. 

 The electronic fart machine was a much simpler toy.

 When Jimmy was about five we bought him a swing set for Christmas. On Christmas Eve I started assembling the set at about 9 PM and completed it at 6 AM on Christmas morning. It had only fifty parts.