I Hate LEGO

 

I Hate LEGO

There. I said it. 

Before you come at me saying, “But, Jenny. They’re such magnificent manipulatives and help develop fine motor skills, logical thinking, and even STEM education!” 

Hogwash. 

LEGO is stupid. I hate LEGO and here’s why. 

Every horizontal surface in my home is currently covered in LEGO. There is LEGO on both my dining room and breakfast room tables, leaving us with no place left to eat dinner. There is LEGO on the floor in every single room of my whole house. There is LEGO on my kitchen counter and on our fireplace hearth. There are even a few bricks on the back of the toilet in the guest bathroom. 

Surely you’re familiar with the common parenting trope of stepping on a LEGO. Yes, I resemble that trope, however, I have also found LEGO in my underwear (don’t ask), as well as in my hair. 

Perhaps I’m super sensitive about LEGO right now because we’ve had The Little Plastic Bricks from Hades in our home for a solid 11 years now. My son was an early adopter of the toy and now, he’s approaching his 12th birthday and shows no sign of letting his LEGO obsession go. 

If I could calculate how much money we’ve spent on LEGO, I would surely weep. When he was younger, every time my son would get a $20 bill for his birthday, he would ask to be taken directly to the nearest LEGO dealer. The sad thing is, if you are familiar with LEGO, you know that $20 gets you precious little in the way of any meaningful LEGO sets. So, my poor kid would spend an hour on the LEGO aisle at Target, trying desperately to con me out of a short term payday loan or trying to summon up some enthusiasm for the sad LEGO sets in the $20 and under price point. 

Now that he’s older, he has moved on to the more complicated LEGO sets. You know what comes with the more complicated sets (if you said a higher price tag, you’d also be correct)? SMALLER pieces…dare I say, downright microscopic in size. In case you’re still living in the LEGO DUPLO world and think that those chunky bricks in muted pastel colors are annoying, wait until you get into the sets for older kids. The masterminds at LEGO, exhibiting an apparent total disdain for parents AND while obviously also harboring a raging vendetta against vacuum cleaners, include transparent LEGO pieces that are about the size of a baby aspirin in the more advanced sets. So cute. 

Truth be told, I don’t even bother to bend over and pick those pieces up anymore. If there’s one on my floor, it gets swept up and thrown away with the pet hair and dust. If my vacuum digests one, oh well. I am absolutely NOT digging through the canister of my vacuum to retrieve one of those transparent nubs of acrimony. 

LEGO is all that my son talks about. He has a savant-like knowledge of every set available and he studies the LEGO catalog like a zealous Bible scholar. He can tell you how many pieces each set has; how many “mini figs” each set has; the price of each set, etc. It is awe-inspiring how he has all of that information memorized and yet can not remember to study for his math quiz on Wednesday. 

I get it. I know. I KNOW! (Back off, man.)

Some day, I will long for these halcyon days. One day, I might even look back fondly at the hundreds of tubs of LEGO that we will undoubtedly be storing in our home for the foreseeable future and yearn for these simple times. Better yet, maybe my son’s obsession with LEGO will lead him to a wildly lucrative career in engineering where he’ll design and construct gravity defying high rise buildings in exotic locales…or, land him his dream job as a sales associate at the LEGO store at North Star Mall, across the hall from Chick-fil-A. 

LEGO has been a huge part of my son’s childhood and of my time as a parent, and I don’t ACTUALLY hate LEGO. It could be worse. I’m sure my son could have glommed onto a violent, loud, and even more expensive toy obsession. I will someday be grateful for the ingenuity and creativity that this toy fostered in my kid, but I sure would love a return on our LEGO investment…is that asking too much?

Jenny
Jenny is a 40-something, married mother of two (Anna, 2007 and Jack, 2009), who migrated to the Hill Country after doing a 14 year stint in Houston. When Jenny isn’t walking her slightly neurotic (and completely beloved) rescued Weimaraner, she enjoys writing, making to-do lists, and folding laundry (and sarcasm). Jenny holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Texas A&M University--Corpus Christi, and completed graduate coursework in Guidance and Counseling. She is a freelance writer who writes a weekly pet column for a Houston newspaper, and is a contributor at Dog Friendly San Antonio, New Braunfels Monthly and San Antonio Woman, as well as assorted other publications. You can also find her on Instagram (introvertsguidetosobriety). Favorite Restaurant: Bohanan's Favorite Landmark: The Alamo (duh) Favorite San Antonio Tradition: Wurstfest (not technically SAT, but closer to Jenny's stomping grounds).