Okay, let me walk you through something I got up to recently. It turned into quite the afternoon, what I’d call some tremendous entertainment, totally unexpected.
It started pretty normally. I was just puttering around the house on a Saturday, feeling a bit restless. You know how it gets sometimes? Too much screen time, maybe. I felt like I needed to do something, something physical, but didn’t have any big projects lined up.
Then I remembered the garage. Specifically, that corner where stuff just… accumulates. Old hobbies, forgotten projects. Decided to have a bit of a clear-out, or at least, look like I was having a clear-out.
Digging Through the Past
So, I went out there. Started shifting boxes. Found some old tools, dusty cans of something-or-other. And then, tucked away behind a stack of old tires, I found it: my old model rocket kit. Haven’t seen that thing in probably twenty years. It wasn’t even a fancy one, just a basic starter kit.
I brought it inside. Cleaned it up a bit. The box was battered, but the parts seemed mostly there. The little plastic fins, the cardboard body tube, the nose cone. Even found a couple of unused engines, still sealed, surprisingly.
Now, here’s where the “entertainment” part really kicked in. I thought, “Why not? Let’s see if I can still put this thing together.”
The Build (and Re-Build)
Spread the parts out on the kitchen table. The instructions were… well, let’s say ‘vintage’. Yellowed paper, slightly confusing diagrams. I started assembling it. Gluing the fins on straight was trickier than I remembered. Had to hold them steady for ages. Got glue on my fingers, naturally.
Then I realized I put one of the fins on backwards. Had to carefully pry it off without wrecking the cardboard tube. Made a bit of a mess. Cleaned it up, glued it back on the right way. More waiting. It was slow work, fiddly work.
Here’s a quick rundown of the minor disasters:
- Glued my thumb and index finger together briefly.
- Almost glued the nose cone on permanently before installing the parachute.
- Managed to get a blob of paint on the ‘recovery wadding’ which is basically just fancy tissue paper.
But honestly? I was completely absorbed. Wasn’t thinking about emails, or news, or anything else. Just focusing on getting this little rocket ship ready. There was something really satisfying about handling the physical parts, figuring out the slightly rubbish instructions, making slow progress.
Eventually, after maybe two hours of tinkering, it was done. Looked a bit rough around the edges, definitely wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but it looked like a rocket. Stood it up on the table. Felt a ridiculous sense of accomplishment.
Didn’t even launch it that day. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. But the process itself, the fumbling, the fixing, the sheer focus on this simple, slightly pointless task? That was the fun part. A genuinely good time, away from all the usual noise. Tremendous entertainment, found in an old box in the garage. Who knew?
