It's Not My Fault!

That's right!

It's not my fault - they made me do it!

You see, The Wife and I are very casual about events, personal remembrance style events.

Our own birthdays? For the shopping run prior to you might be asked what you want to eat on 'the day' in case we need to order something different than normal. Anniversary? Now that my aunt is no longer around to faithfully send us the card which acted as a reminder we usually don't even remember until something marginally related triggers that memory in one or the other of us weeks later.

And don't even get us started on the so-called Christian church's blatent attempt to usurp yet another ancient pagan celebration (Lupercalia in this case) by declaring Feb 14 as a feast day for St. Valentine (at least three Valentines have been stainted and it's not clear which one was being targeted in this case) Especially since this happened around 500AD, a full 300 years before 'the church' started acknowledging weddings as something worthy of being blessed and a millenia before the 'wedding sacrament', which somehow was suddenly supposed to make the milenias old custom of pair-partnerships more special, was standardized (and moved from the front steps to the alter) during the Council of Trent (1563 AD). Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, we have never been inclined to participate in this both commercially and religiously driven annual sacrificing of an estimated 2 billion dollars worth of plant sex organs!

Gifts? We don't  do that either, never have, because everyday should be special, not just a select few. (Awww!) - OK, OK, maybe it's part that and part because we're grown-ass adults and if we want something and can afford it there's no sense in screwing around waiting for a 'special day' that might not come untill after the metaphorical bus culls us from this existence. - 

BTW, we're not complete curmudeons. We send The Daughter's half-sister's two small kids something for Christmas every year even though we have rarely seen them in person and they have no idea who we are. In fact we're already working on this year's. (I suspect the act does more for us than the kids.)

My SIL's on the otherhand, are in that segment of polite society that believe traditional gift-giving is mandatory no matter how tightly it squeezes the budget.

So when they saw this thing on the shelf, something that combines my inclination for both camping and puzzling, they just had to go in together and get it for my birthday.

Cool! But I was working on other things at the time so it got shelved

untill I had a project-opening in my schedule.

I figured I could combine this new RV

with my wooden VW Bus RV and make a quaint little camping scene out of them despite, or maybe because of, the scale and style differences.

So, once I had an opening in the schedule, I broke out the first batch of blocks and the 72 page instruction book

and

went

to work.

After a while I'm thinking 'Wow! These people must have every appliance in the Sears catalog. That's no way to camp!'. But I kept on following the instructions anyway.

Right about here, in a panic, I run up to make sure the gate is closed, run back down to the barn, lock the doors, and turn out the lights - because I finally twig to the fact that I'm not building an RV, I'm building a fucking drug lab!

To be fair, The Wife and I only watched one episode of Breaking Bad, way back well before I retired, back when my dad was still alive and Elmer was still hale-n-hardy. That was enought for us to decide it was way too violent for our tastes. We also don't find no-good-way-out scenarios entertaining or educational, just stressful. And between the two of us we've got enough anxiety without adding that crap to our evening routine!

I don't know if my SIL's realized what this actually is, or if this is what they really think of me, but now I'm accidently elbow deep into becoming a drug lord!

Once I got over the shock, and talked myself down off the they're-gona-come-and-get-me ledge I did the only sensible thing I could.

I carried on.

But at this point I deviated from the instructions, not an unusual occurrence for me. 

Before putting the roof on

I installed the wheel-sets out of order so I could figure out where to drill through the floor

in order to wire the model up with lights. (Come on! You didn't  really think I would skip this extracurricular step did you?)

After laying some colored lights on the floor of the RV, both inside and out,

I attached some white lights left over from previous lighting projects to the ceiling before finally installing the roof.

With that done it was time to move on to the base the RV sits on and landscaping around it.

This is where I got another gruesome shock.

This kit, for kids 14 and up, includes a couple of headless torsos!

Yep, propped up there in the sand just outside the door and right next to a casually lounging drug barron.

I suspect that this means something to those who stuck with the show, but for me it’s just creepy!

Anyway, a little more lighting and the kit is finished.

But you didn't really think I would stop there did you?!

In order to redeem my standing in the community - Oh wait, I never did have any standing in the community. OK - in order to make myself feel better, I now have to come up with

some cop-stuff so I can stage a raid on the lab.

Maybe some SWAT people since drug lords, headless people, and remote desert seems like a little much for one cop?

And, because I apparently can't help myself, I'll need to build a desert scene to showcase it all.

And maybe add a few - - -

Oh man!  - - I might need therapy.