A story about a basketball hoop.

You know with me you get the whole shebang - the heavy with the light, the intense with the fluff, the good times with the bad.... so it doesn't seem fair not to share this story...

This is a story about a basketball hoop.  Not any basketball hoop, but the one I researched online, rang a zillion places and then drove to a new suburb "out west" somewhere in Sydney to get.  That itself is a whole other blog post, especially the part about how I got this 50kg awkward big box out of the shopping trolley and into my car, while parked on a slope, but I won't bore you with that.  But I will say my core and quads had a great workout that day in front of all the other concerned shoppers.  And the bruises have faded.

So that was back in February for my little fella's birthday.  That's probably an important part.  This was my 7 year old's birthday present.

"It's just a 5 minute job to pop up" the salesman sold me that compelling line.  "I can do 5 minutes", I thought.  And lordy you so know where this is going.

Unfortunately for us our "backyard" is actually our "front yard" thanks to a big pool and not much else, so during these child rearing years, we're sucking up the fact our El Cheapo trampoline is a feature of our entrance, as is now a basketball hoop.  So the Husband decided to get all the bits out and spend 5 minutes putting it up.  He came in shaking his head accusingly.  "This will take days, not minutes, it's a massive job and we haven't got the tools we need".  "But the guy said 5 minutes", I pleaded to unlistening ears, as I took myself off to Bunnings to buy the tools.

And I could regale you with accounts of how two became three as we enlisted the help of our 12 year old, who patiently stood for hours holding poles and screws and bits as his parents slaved and argued and reread well worn instructions, before realising we had screwed stuff in tightly the wrong way (and would need to undo the process).  I could tell you about secretive trips to the beach to steal sand to weigh the thing down (which actually required hours of pushing fingerful by fingerful into two small holes).  And I could tell you how 5 minutes became weeks as in disgust we aborted the mission, leaving a basketball carcass to rot on our front driveway, in full view of our neighbours and the community as a whole.  I could even tell you that the 7 year old has grown a little weary of basketball.  And arguments???  Well I could tell some doozies.

And as the basketball had it's final fill of sand and was positioned just so this weekend, the husband said to me "No more kitset anything.  Ok? We never, ever do this again."  Which could be challenging as our whole house is basically kit set.  Lets hope we've screwed all those bolts in tightly.

Who does the kitset in your house?  Do you love it or loathe it?