Day 15: Appendix
Blaine dropped his head in frustration. "Remind me why we didn't spend extra to have this pre-assembled?" he grumbled.
"Because it cost a small fortune and we were, to quote someone in this room, 'Perfectly capable of doing it ourselves,'" Kurt replied, turning the pages of the instruction guide.
"Clearly I was wrong. Terribly, horribly wrong."
Ignoring Blaine's complaints, Kurt soldiered on. "Oh, here it is." He squinted to read the tiny print and read aloud slowly, "For models ending in three, four, and seven, see Appendix B."
Blaine raised his head, his brow furrowed in disbelief. "There's an appendix? What are we building, a missile launcher?"
Kurt chuckled, patting Blaine's hand placatingly. He'd spent enough summers in his father's tire shop to have some comfort in the dynamics of assembly. Blaine, on the other hand, for all of his many talents, had never been taught much about being handy (his father's ill-fated attempt to restore a car that one summer aside). It wasn't that he lacked the ability to learn; he simply didn't have much experience so far.
"No, sweetie. It's only a bicycle. Not a missile launcher. Although, if we change the configuration according to this diagram in Appendix Dā¦"
"Ha, ha," Blaine deadpanned. He picked up the screwdriver that he had let slip from his fingers to the floor at some point and walked around the half-assembled bicycle to Kurt's side. "Okay," he sighed. "Show me Appendix A."
"You're a good dad," Kurt said sincerely, resting his head on Blaine's shoulder momentarily.
It took another hour and two more appendices ā one of which even Kurt didn't understand ā but the look on their daughter's face the next morning made it all worthwhile.
