It’s got a few gray hairs too, now, doesn’t it? We don’t even use it anymore for barbecuing: the blacksmithing kid in the family (we accept luddites of every persuasion amongst us, declared the handspinner) has turned it into his personal forge–but *not* under the flammable olive tree when in use, thank you very much.
When we bought our first house, in New Hampshire, we were pretty excited (um, yeah in the way you are when you know what the alternative could be like) that we’d landed a mortgage with the lowest interest rate that had been available in several years–12.5%. That left our budget with not a whole lot of room for extras. Hence the untuned piano in the book, but I digress.
*But the hubby wanted to buy a barbecue grill. I said no way. He wanted a grill. I said no way. (Repeat pattern from asterisk till length desired or till you can’t stand it anymore.)
Which means we eventually got a grill.
Now, if I’d had any idea how much fun he was going to have with that thing, if I’d had any idea how much of the dinnertime work he was going to be taking over when he used it, I would never have argued a word. I would have shoved him firmly out the door towards the store, saying, g’buy now!
But then one day he decided that I needed to use the thing, too. How could I not love his favorite toy? C’mon, just come try it!
Yeah, right, like I couldn’t see right through that one? I had my hands full of babies, I had enough to keep me busy. This is your thing, dude, I want no part.
Come on!
Yeah, so, in the end, I did. He got me to come poke around with it, following his instructions. See? he said. You do this, then this.
I did exactly what he’d told me. Nada.
He’d forgotten one step in the process–he was used to just doing, not verbalizing it–and as I stood there looking at the thing sitting there thumbing its nose at me, he asked me, Did you push the start button?
What, this one? And I pushed it.
Now, I am 15″ closer to the ground than he is in the first place. My head was still reeking a bit when I showed up at my wide-eyed hairdresser’s, asking her if she could make this look, you know, on purpose? Please? I well remember her running her fingers through my hair and having some of it just kind of shred into little dark stinky pieces in my lap as she did. Not a whole lot of it–it could have been far, far worse. It was just enough that I am glad my children were too young to remember or be traumatized at seeing their mom’s face engulfed in a fireball, a view I never want to see from the inside again. Somehow my glasses saved my eyes, and no skin burned. Just a bit of hair.
I never touched that grill again. The hubby tried half-heartedly, and I totally refused.
Yeah, 