“As someone who just finished spending the majority of his life in prison, what happened with Legos? They used to be simple. Oh, come on, I know you know what I’m talking about. Legos were simple? Something happened out here while I was inside. Harry Potter Legos, Star Wars Legos, complicated kits, tiny little blocks? I mean, I’m not saying it’s bad, I just want to know what happened.” — Professor Kane, Community

I recently had a circus-themed birthday party. It was lots of fun; pictures will be on facebook soon. A few days later, there was a knock at the door, and when I opened the door, I found a mysterious package. It was labeled “Lego.” At first, I thought it was a mistake, but I checked the label and it was addressed to me. So I immediately — well, actually first I washed the dishes because they were piling up and I’m somehow amazingly patient with surprises — opened it up to see what was inside. There were several boxes of Legos along with a note from my friend who had missed the party. A sweet gesture. She works at a Lego store.

One of the sets was a Star Wars A-wing fighter. This was the first set I opened, and I was confused at first. The bags had numbers on them: 1, 2, 3. A look at the instructions solved the mystery. You opened the bags in order, building only with the pieces in one bag at a time. It made hunting for pieces less hard because you had a smaller set to look through. I remember how I used to dump all the bags into a pile and spend a lot of time searching for particular pieces. I don’t know if I liked it; a small level of difficulty adds to the fun.

The A-wing fighter was the first relatively complicated Lego set I’d built in a while. (Maybe since high school.) It was weird to see such a big change.