Grill

Every summer, Diana’s store holds a “Pink Wine and Swine” event, which features chicken and piping hot coffee. Nope. Strike that. They serve Rose and pork. In order to make the whole thing profitable, they team up with a local butcher and cook the Babe’s and Porky’s on site.

Which means we have to haul our grill from our yard to the store. Getting the thing into our car is an amazingly messy pain in the butt. The manufacturers also did us the favor of making all the edges of the grill razor sharp. Last year, we snapped off one of the wheels dragging it across the parking lot. It’s one of the three times a year Diana and I fight.

This year, as we were swearing and smearing a year’s worth of grill juice on our pants, Diana suggested we just leave the old junky grill at the store and I go buy a new grill. My frustration outweighed my frugality, so I agreed.

Elijah, sensing I was about to spend a lot of money, appeared out of nowhere and asked to tag along to the hardware store.

We went to the big old orange building and found ourselves in front of the gleaming fire makers. I was immediately at a loss for which one to buy. My plan was just to get the third most expensive one. Eli simply wanted one with a little side burner. “You know, so you don’t have to go all the way inside to make baked beans.”

Seemed like a reasonable request for an item we make 1.5 times a year.

Eventually, we flagged down a worker guy and asked if he knew anything about grills. “Sure, why not?” he said. He told us that the third most expensive one was a real disaster and if we wanted to have perfectly cooked food we should go with the second most expensive one. Oh, and look. It had a little side burner. Eli nodded so hard I thought his head was going to fly off into the lighting fixtures section.

Fine. I asked if they had any already built or if they could come set it up today.

“Well, we could get out to your house in 2075. Or we can just give you a box with a billion pieces in it and you put it together.”

“How long does something like this take to put together?” I asked.

“It takes our guys about fifteen minutes.”

That sounded easy enough. I made Eli promise to help me put it together. For bonding purposes. Eyeing the little side burner, he said, “Yeah yeah, bonding.”

We got the giant grill box home and I spread out the billion pieces on our deck. After 15 minutes of intense building, I realized I was roughly 1/928547567^th of the way done. Eli backed away and said, “I feel like this is one of those times when you might yell at me and I think it’s best if I leave you alone.”

“Yes. You are correct.”

Just then, Diana’s Dad, Stepmom and sister from France arrived. Oh yeah, did I mention the grill was supposed to be done for dinner with Diana’s Dad, Stepmom, and sister from France? They kept handing me white wine and saying, “Yay Rick!”

The encouragement was helpful. The white wine was not.

As the sun set, I finished my project and connected the propane. With a click and a tick it whooshed to life and we had delicious burgers a half hour later.

Come on. How many of you were thinking I was never going to get the thing together? How many of you were thinking I was going to set myself on fire? Shame on you.

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