Preparing for the Upcoming (which is what I’ve decided to call my daughter until she is born) is, as most parents know, a bummer. Shopping, planning, nesting, preparing said nest for nesting, is no fun. Perhaps my girlfriend (and definitely my mother) would disagree, but that’s where I am on the issue. It’s time-consuming, murderously boring, and devastatingly expensive.

So I’ll take any help that I can get. For example, the other day I was visiting a friend’s house and he told me that someone in his building had just put a crib outside to be thrown away. Kid had just moved into the toddler bed and they didn’t need it anymore.

I went outside side, and luck of luck, the crib was in excellent condition, all the pieces there, hardware in a plastic bag, paint still intact, nothing wobbly. Yahtzee! I just saved myself several hundred bucks and god only knows how many hours of shopping. I threw the thing in my car, took it home, dumped it in my bedroom, and there it has sat ever since, waiting for me to put it together.

Without instructions.

Now, I’m not entirely clueless when it comes to things around the house. I can change a light fixture, install a ceiling fan, do a bit of basic carpentry, but I am far from handy, and the site of this crib, in pieces, waiting for me, daring me to put her together on my own, has rendered me inert.

Perhaps, in a better world, the real Dad–the one with the workshop out back, the one who lives on planet Suburbia and has all those neat power tools–will come along and tell me how to put the fucker together. Until then, I will procrastinate.