Grilling with Keith

Ok, this is my latest luxury. When we lived in Cincinnati, Dave (my brother-in-law) and I bought a grill together. After an entire weekend of actually assembling the grill (Dave and I are awful at working together on assembly projects, eg. the basketball goal and Lori's engagement present; the two aren't related), we enjoyed its use for a year and a half. When we moved to Idaho, I bequeathed it entirely to Dave, trusting him with its care. It has since been junked and replaced. Anyway, Lori and I wanted a new grill when we moved. So, we had a yard sale and put the money made at the sale towards a new grill.

After shopping around for a little over a week, I found what I wanted at Lowe's. If you need to buy a grill, be sure to price there. A similar model sold for $200 more at Home Depot and Costco.

That night I decided to put the grill together. Here's how it works when I assemble stuff: Lori reads the instructions and I do the work. When I read the instructions, invariably something gets put on upside down. Now, for those who know me well, you know that I have the mechanical dexterity of an elephant wearing mittens. I'm always one mistake away from a complete meltdown.

I first separated the parts out, putting some inside the house and some outside where I was working. We had assembled nearly half the grill without mishap, when Lori read Step 7. Step 7 included parts laying on the kitchen table inside the house. I'm working on our patio, just outside the kitchen, so when she calls out the part, I whirl around to go into the house, not realizing that Lori shut the screen door.

Have you ever been driving and had bugs smash against the windshield? I now know what they go through just before death. My glasses slipped sideways on my face, and my arms went out to the side at extremely awkward angles. My knee, which apparently was traveling faster than the rest of my body, went through the screen door. The entire frame buckled and then popped out, falling on top of me.

I would love to say that I handled this quite calmly, gently setting the door aside while gaily commenting on how funny it probably appeared. Remember, meltdown's just a few blood pressure points away. Lori yelled, "Keith, don't throw it!" Fortunately, her words cut through my intense emotional state. I softly tossed it (OK, maybe it was more of a hard shove) and stomped into the kitchen, leaving my wife shaking with barely-controlled mirth.

This would be a funny story in and of itself, except for the fact that I did it one more time. By this time it was evening, and Lori had taken Trey and Kassady inside. Obviously, she doesn't want mosquitos in the house, so she shut the glass sliding door. Within 4 minutes, I had slammed face first into the door knocking my glasses off and bruising my already sensitive ego.

It took about 2 days for me to get to the point of actually laughing at what happened. Hey, alls well that ends well, though. I have a great grill.

This particular picture caught me grilling the hamburgers (using the special Waggoner seasoning mix/sauce) for Kassady's Birthday party.