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M aybe it was the maple syrup that made us do it. We had just finished the big pancake breakfast that my lovely wife had kindly made to celebrate my birthday, and when the question arose as to what we should do on that lazy Sunday, somehow we agreed to go and buy the crib.

The Crib. The last major piece of equipment needed to complete the baby’s room. The place where my precious child would rest his weary head. The very thing we just happened to see marked down in a weekend sale flyer for a suburban big-box toy store and baby supply retailer which shall not be named.

The first thing we noticed as we circled the parking lot was that this enormous capitalist altar to all things baby had no pink expectant mother parking spaces. The second thing we noticed was that the place was clearly designed by crazy people with ADD and caffeine jitters. Every single inch of the place was crammed full of garishly coloured, highly expensive and pretty much unnecessary tchotchkes, all of which required batteries. The big kind. D-cells.

Thankfully we found the advertised crib right away and, using our vast experience in choosing cribs, we quickly agreed that it was perfect. After all, it was in a flyer, and it was on sale. We took a cursory look at the other cribs just to compare and, sure, they were way nicer, but also way more expensive. Just check out those features! Rich hand-worked mahogany! Whisper-quiet adjustable railings! Wi-fi Internet access and instant diaper incineration!

Looking at the price tag, I wondered if they had a difficult time fitting so many numbers on it. The top-of-the-line crib was more than three times as expensive as our bottom-of-the-line model. In fact, that particular crib retailed for more than what I sold my car for. Can it really be that much better than the one we settled for? Of course it was, don’t be stupid.

Hey, a crib’s a crib, right? As long as it’s CSA-approved, we’re all good. It can’t be that much of a death trap, right? He’s only going to be in there to sleep and for the first few months he won’t even be doing much of that, right?

Maybe we should have gone for a more expensive model. The one with 24 ergonomically correct support points and an mp3 player or the one that has an ice-cube maker and a GPS tracking system. Hopefully we can fit it in the refrigerator box that we’ll be calling home when we have to default on our mortgage to buy it.

We got our modest manger home and I giddily grabbed my tools, actually excited to be spending my birthday afternoon putting together my future baby’s crib. I matched up all of the parts to the contents list and read through the instructions, working out in my head how it all went together. Then I began.

The first step could not have gone better. The wooden supports slid right into these metal brackets which easily fit onto this big plank and then I really bolted the hell out of those nuts. The next step was even easier -- simply slide the front railing into the headboard and try not to howl in anger as a tiny metal spring that is not mentioned in the instructions nor pictured in the illustration snaps off, shoots through the air and bounces off the floor with a “ping!”

But I had done exactly what the instructions said! I couldn’t speak. I looked at the instructions. I looked at the crib. I looked at the instructions again. I looked at the misshapen piece of metal glinting in the dappled sunlight of the bedroom window. I calmly tried to put the piece back on and it wouldn’t fit. I tried again to persuade it to see things my way and it defied me. I gave it one last chance to comply and it called my bluff by falling onto the floor again.

Since I was a child, my favourite super-hero has always been the Incredible Hulk. You probably know the story. Mild-mannered Bruce Banner gets hit by a massive dose of gamma radiation and is forever cursed to transform into a green goliath whenever he gets angry. A seething insanely furious goliath who gets only stronger the angrier he gets and whose only real power is to smash things to pieces for many square miles.

A psychiatric professional would point out that this is not a healthy role model.

My skin did not turn green and I did not reduce the crib into a big pile of splinters but it was close. With the divine patience of my lovely wife, I was able to get my rage-induced transformation under control and calmly suggested that I call customer service the next day. I jotted down the number and turned the light off in the baby’s room, shaken with my defeat, a broken man beaten down on my own birthday.

The next day found me repeatedly calling the 800 number and repeatedly being rewarded with a busy signal. I couldn’t even get a monotone recorded message trying to convince me that my call was important to them. I returned home from work feeling disappointment and shame. I had had failed to provide basic shelter for my son. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if we had spent more. Maybe we could get by without such frivolities as food and electricity.

I opened the front door home and was greeted by my lovely wife, who had a coy look on her face.

“I’ve got a surprise for you!”

It was then she revealed her birthday present to me. Earlier in the day, sister-in-law had brought over her engineer boyfriend, who had effortlessly completed what had so cruelly defied me. There in the corner of the nursery was the most beautiful, fully assembled, bottom-of-the-line crib I have ever laid my eyes upon. Happy Birthday to me!