Lego: The gift that keeps on hurting

Eleven of the most hateful words I have ever heard uttered are, “Dad, do you want to help me with this Lego set?”

Ever since I was a child myself, I have never understood the attraction of taking hundreds – sometimes thousands – of little plastic bricks and trying to attach them to themselves to accomplish a hellish design created by sadists in Denmark. With instruction booklets reading like an arcane manuscript written in Sanscrit and an end product that looks like nothing more than a lumpen, albeit coherent, Lego mess, I abhor the whole concept.

And yet, here I am, almost every Christmas Day or Boxing Day, crouched on the living room carpet, sifting through pieces that somehow multiply when I look away, while my little human grins like a saint and chants, “It’s fun, Dad! It’s fun!”

Let me tell you: It is not fun. Not fun in the existential sense, not fun in the “we’re bonding as a family” sense, and certainly not fun when a crucial piece is inexplicably missing, forcing a dramatic reinterpretation of the Hogwarts Castle.

I realise, of course that I am firmly in the minority here. Capitalism has long extolled the virtues of these hateful little bricks and the corresponding fanbase are only too happy to part with their parents’ money. And, as the LEGO Group says itself, the whole craze is helping to “inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow through the power of play.”

Inspire and develop, my rear end.

The reason I’m driving full tilt into my Lego-based mania is because the company opened its first Norn Irish store last week, in Belfast’s Victoria Square, imaginatively named, ‘The Lego Store.’

Many will be weak at the knees with anticipation, salivating over this rainbow cornucopia of over-priced plastic. Personally, I’m weak at the knees with constipation that any more of it will land in the house.

From errant pieces that hide of their own volition (into the dark underbelly of the sofa where only spiders fear not to tread), to the vindictive cast-offs which meld invisibly with the carpet only to haunt your foot later with their vicious, landmine teeth – everything about Lego gives me anxiety.

And it isn’t just the bricks themselves. The sheer scale of these sets is mind-boggling (not to mention expensive). Some sets of instructions run for more pages than the average novel and I’m convinced that the diagrams should come with a complimentary electron microscope.

Of course, the little humans find this delightful. “Look, Dad, I’m building a dragon with moving wings!” Meanwhile, I am calculating whether life insurance covers trauma from plastic-induced eye strain and questioning my decision to procreate.

Then comes the aftermath. Even if the set is miraculously completed, the Lego curse is far from over. Either the completed set is installed on a shelf or window sill to forever remind you of your physical and mental agony, or it is dismantled only to generate yet more nasty pain over a future weekend.

Despite all this, I have tried to see the positives. They say Lego teaches patience, engineering skills, and creativity. I’ve certainly learned patience – endless patience. My engineering skills are… well, I can now build a bridge that collapses under the weight of a minifigure. And creativity?

Yes, I have creatively imagined throwing the entire set into fire and then laughing the laugh of Edgar Allen Poe’s Raven as the plastic returns to the hell from whence it came.

And yet, despite my fantasies of fire and brimstone, I know the next box of overpriced bricks will arrive.

And I will help build it. Because capitalism isn’t just a ditch – it’s a Lego trap, and I keep falling into it – feet first.