The Battle of the High Chairs

Welcome to the battle of the high Chairs.

Strategy

To be the first team to successfully put together one high chair.

The teams

Team A- Tracie, Ashlie, Corrie, Aunt Collen, Uncle Jerry, Cousin Rachel

Team B- Austin

Referee

Jeff

Now you may think the game, strategy, scoring points and teams were all well thought out and planned well in advance of the actual playing of the game, but that ruins all the fun. Actually the way this game is played is Corrie and Tracie start playing well in advance of anyone else even realizing they will be active participants. Tracie chooses to be the "Putter-together-person". Tracie has selected Corrie as the "read me the directions person". That strategy isn't working too well as Tracie can't understand what Corrie is saying. Tracie decides to forgo the reading of the actual words and just look at the pictures. Progress is going well. Tracie even finds time to visit with Aunt Collen, Uncle Jerry, and cousin Rachel as she puts high Chair together. She reaches the end of her pictures and stands back to marvel at her creation. Hmmm.... Slight problem. The seat of the high chair is suppose to be able to be adjusted up and down. Her creation seems to be sitting close to the ground and will not stay up. Not only that but the whole chair seems to be acting more like a catapult than a safe chair for 5 month olds. (Sorry picture unavailable. Thank God! even though it would have been priceless) Enter the next stage of the game. Enter Collen, Jerry, Rachel and Ashlie to help figure out what Tracie did wrong. Now also becomes the point where we know this is going to be a special occassion so Ashlie pulls out the camera. Jeff is secretly wishing he had a camcorder because these pictures just do not do justice.

Unbeknownst to this team Austin has started to put the other high chair together by himself.

2 hours into this game with many discussions, lots of analysis, screwing and unscrewing many times, Rachel (the college student majoring in Astro/physics) notices an "L" on the one piece we have struggled with for probably the last hour trying to figure out which side it went on. Oh now that makes a big difference. Way to go Rachel!!!!

We are now well aware that Austin is trying his hardest to put his together by himself. The race is on.

We quickly put that piece on the correct side and everything is now coming together. Oh no!!! we have now lost 2 screws. Never Fail... Uncle Jerry has a box of screws in his truck. Hurry.. Rachel get the screws. Hurry... find 2... Hurry Austin is winning... I can't find two screws this size.....Well take these screws from another place just to get it together and we will put these other screws in later. Hurry... Hurry. Oh wait are these the missing screws still here in the package. Why yes it is. There Team A is DONE!!! and it actually looks like a High Chair.... Where is Austin? He is quietly celebrating his victory of winning the "Battle of the High Chairs" by himself against 6 very well educated people. Way to go AUSTIN!!!! Learnings from this game. Give this family one high chair to put together and we can have fun for hours.