Year 2, Day 2

Advance warning, and I do apologize for this — this post gets moderately racist due to a particular anecdote from my childhood.

When I was a kid, my dad threw the term “Jap bastard” around a lot. Not in reference to actual Japanese people, whom as near as I can tell my dad had no real animosity for (save maybe some lingering feelings nurtured by his father’s WWII generation). No — every time my dad said this, it was in reference to a toy or electronic device that had clearly been manufactured in eastern Asia. Japan? Maybe. China? More than likely. The point of origin really wasn’t important — anything that was even a little complicated to set up or that came with poorly translated instructions was a Jap bastard.

I bring this up because I have now encountered the first Jap bastard of my tenure as a father. The item in question is a cute little rocking…elephant? Didn’t know they made those, but sure, why not? It’s just a tad big for Miles right now, but it goes with the decor in his room and was a nice gift from Jaclyn’s aunt and uncle.

It was also a real bitch to put together. I’m including a shot of the directions below, with some added steps and annotations that, upon completing the task to the best of my ability, I feel the company that manufactured the elephant (incidentally, from China) left out.