car seat=rocket science

this is a photo of tayloe trying to install the base of our car seat in the car. it's really to bad you can't hear the swear words or see the beads of sweat on his forehead.
it turns out it's a pretty good idea to have the car seat base installed in the car before the baby's born because most hospitals won't let you leave if you don't. our hospital is catholic and you know how catholics are about rules. i don't need the sisters of charity of leavenworth giving me the preachy preach about child safety the day we take our son home.
so this morning's mission was to get the thing in. noah built an arc and saved all of god's creatures in 40 days. we could install a car seat in 30 minutes, for sure.
tayloe really did try, but the damn thing is like the rubik's cube of baby gear. on top of that, the company rivals george bush in employing scare tactics.
"YOUR CHILD'S SAFETY DEPENDS ON YOU INSTALLING AND USING THIS INFANT RESTRAINT CORRECTLY." that's what the manual says -- just in case you didn't realize before you bought a car seat that your kid is your responsibility.
so tayloe gets it in, kinda.
"why does it move back and forth so easily like that?" i asked.
"i don't know. do you think that's right?" he said.
"uuuummmm," i said.
he picked up the seat and tried to clip it in to the base. it didn't go immediately. so he lifted it again and slammed it down a little harder. still nothing. another slam. slam, slam, slam. slamslamslamslamslamslam.
"no," he said. "this can't be right."
luckily, my husband is a sensible man. pride doesn't get in the way of him stepping aside and letting others solve life's big problems.
"let's get someone else to do it," he said.
20 minutes later, i was on the phone with the police department, which offers free baby seat checks and installation. only, the next one is two wednesdays from now, which (if there is in fact a god) will be too late.
so i called the store where we bought it. they said they'd be happy to install it ... for $27. yes, there's dirty little conspiracy going on here. normally i would have scoffed and made a huge deal about what a rip off that is, but at that point it just needed to be done. i actually had to make an appointment, and i was only able to get in today because there was a cancellation. i'm in the wrong business.
the gentle mexican man assigned to help me looked at what we'd done and scratched his head.
"can you tell me what we did wrong," i asked.
"oh, everything," he said. he had it done, snug and tight, in 5 minutes.
i hope we never have to take it out.
as an aside: it really must be pretty annoying to have a nag taking pictures of you while you're trying to put something together. so i'm going to stop. i promise.