monument

This hoop is a monument to Mark's desire to make the boys happy.  It was a big fat lousy pain in the patoot to put together -- to say the least.  So many times he just wanted to take a sledge hammer to it, but didn't because it was what the boys wanted most out of spring break.  The story goes like this:  Upon opening the box, the first thing he discovered was a missing part.  That got us a call to customer service (wait time 20 minutes) then a trip to the factory (luckily located in the northern part of the county) to get the part.  While there he decided to ask the employees to take a look at the rest of the stuff and see if he was missing any more parts -- so he wouldn't have to come back.  They said we were missing more parts, and he'd just have to make another call to customer service to order them!  GRRR!  In the process of waiting the required 20 minutes of more to get to a real person, he discovered that he had the wrong instruction manual for the model of hoop we had purchased!  No wonder the parts appeared to be missing or wrong! Once he got the correct manual figured out (with customer service) and loaded on the computer he set to work, only to find more really truly missing parts!  A trip to the hardware store and he was back on track with the set up.  But then, what's this?  Yet another missing part?  Yes. Another call to customer service to figure out exactly what part he needed.  The customer service dude totally got an earful of frustration this time!  The correct size of part was finally figured out and Mark set off again for the hardware store.  With correct part now in hand he was off for the final time in this setup fiasco.  Finally the hoop was raised and the basketball games began -- wahoo! Glad that's over.  The boys are loving it, so maybe it was worth it?