This weekend, I've attempted to make a dent in my home maintenance to-do list, which means I had to make a run to the home improvement emporium. I needed weed and crabgrass killer for the nutgrass and other weeds I discovered while mowing yesterday, and some bags of pre-emergent for the next crop, which typically emerges in January. I needed fluorescent tubes to replace the long-dead ones in my clothes closet. And I needed a tube of Liquid Nails and some grout/adhesive for the soap dish that mysteriously fell off the wall of the guest bathroom a couple weeks ago. You know: the usual stuff.
So off I went to the store, where I wound my way up and down the aisles on my own personal scavenger hunt, checking items off my list as I went. My last stop was Lawn & Garden, where I dumped a few bags of pre-emergent in my cart, did not buy a garden gnome, and took my place in the check-out line. There, I waited while a guy in a bright yellow rain slicker scanned the items in the cart ahead of me. Then I waited while he proceeded to have a rather intense discussion with the customer. Something about grilling. I wasn't really paying attention.
When it was my turn to check out, Slicker Guy set about scanning my items – and then it happened.
“So. Do you have a grill?” he asked me.
“Um… yes?”
I detected a rather disturbing intensity in Slicker Guy's eyes, and I wondered whether 'yes' was the right answer, or the wrong one.
“Charcoal?”
I had my suspicions about where this line of questioning was headed and considered lying. But I'm a terrible liar, so I told the truth. “No, I have gas,” I said. Straight-faced. Somehow.
“Propane?”
I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition! I thought. I turned to the diminutive Asian woman behind me, who silently pleaded with her eyes for me to just leave her out of it.
“No. Natural gas,” I admitted. “We had a drop put in when we built the house.”
Slicker Guy's eyes sparkled with evangelical fervor, and I knew I should have lied.
“Oh, man. You just don't get much heat from natural gas. I've got…” And off he went on a five-minute screed BTUs, the benefits of charcoal, and how if I really wanted to learn to grill – and who wouldn't? – I had to get serious and start watching some guy on the Food Network who only uses a charcoal grill.
That's when I turned to the woman behind me and said, “Didn't you say you needed some information about charcoal grills?”
Yes, I'm probably going to hell for that, but I escaped and lived to burn chicken breasts to cinders another day.
4 comments:
Now that guy is passionate about his grill. you just don't see that every day nor do you want to.
Heavy emphasis on the "nor do you want to". Seriously, this guy was a nutter.
Probably some kind of charcoal grill multilevel.
Hey, hey, now! I was reading along just fine, anxious to learn all about charcoal grilling and then you went and turned it off. Fine, be that way.
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