Says right there, on the first page of the instruction manual, ". . . . is easy to build with easy to follow, step by step plans." The actual work is easy to understand, but you could say the same thing about raising hogs. Different story once you get your feet in the slop. Here's how it goes.

Your wife says, "Let's get the kids a wooden sky fort, make it one big birthday present for all their birthdays." Being Sunday and all, your official I Refuse to Make a Decision Day, you respond with the required response, "Hrrummph." And off you go to the lumber store.

"Okay, sir, you got your two by four by eight's, your two by six by ten's, your four by four by ten's. Go to register five, and then out the first door. Pull your vehicle around to bay nineteen, show the two guys your invoice -- number seven-oh-nine -- and you'll be good to go. Did y'all get five pounds of sixteen 'd' galvanized nails?"

"Hrrummph."

Now, wedded bliss lends itself to a communication process extraordinaire. Unspoken words, head nods, shifts of the eyes, finishing each other's sentences; you do it all. Until it's time to build something together. Then it's the Tower of Babel. And with a project like this, the confusion starts as soon as you unload the wood.

"Let's get the little wheelbarrow and truck the pieces into the yard," you offer.

"Oh, I don't know, there's not that much, that wheelbarrow is so cheap.”

That's a challenge. You put four pieces of wood into the ten dollar wheel barrow and effortlessly wheel then into the yard. Four more go on, some of the bigger ones, and half way back they fall off. Now the curse of the tongues takes over.

"Put-the big-gest-pieces," you stutter, "on either side of the bed and the weight won't shift when we wheel it across the incline."

To her that has the same meaning as, "Green, crusty Jell-O tastes yummy on toast points." For a minute you just stare at each other; she -- convinced she's married Cooter Brown, you -- wondering just where on earth this woman has stashed her brains.

"Hey Bubba," she hisses through clenched teeth, "this wheelbarrow is too small to handle this load, let's JUST CARRY IT!"

You hear . . . well, you hear nothing.

"If you just HOLD the boards up at your end," you say slowly, with your eyes bugging out, "the weight will be more distrizzxedj ghuthej kklkj!!"

"Grisam PLASTSa whicker, ggesat forub NICKSHAB!!"

Somehow the wood gets in the yard.

You get to measuring and leveling and lining up with the square and hammering and tightening and sawing. (I loved the sawing part. I can saw like a big dawg. Just plug me in. Zinnnggg! Scared the heck out of the dog. Zinng! Make the kids jump. Zinngg! It's great fun.) And then, you put the frame together and stand it up.

It's four thousand feet tall.

Didn't look that tall at the lumber store. The kids will need oxygen to sit up there. Planes will bank around it. There's a snow crust forming on the top already. But you continue on. And on.

It's 10:30 at night. The neighbor, kind enough to offer a hand six hours ago, holds the eighth bent nail destined for a particularly tough spot, while your wife holds the flashlight that needs shaking every twenty seconds to keep from dimming. Nail number nine goes in, sort of, and you call it quits.

Later that evening, you peer out the back window. There it stands, like one of those big, black, brooding heads on those Juga Booga islands. A great mystery. Only the mystery is not the fort itself. The mystery is why you didn't just call Sears and say, "Come build me a swing set!"

Hrrummph.