I saw the small print notice on the box with my new propane outdoor grill in it just before the checkout guy ran his magic ray gun across the bar code, and the cash register said ca-ching. It said, Free assembly available. I froze. My Lady Wonder Wench was with me, and she said, What’s the matter? Not wanting to stammer in public, I simply pointed to the notice. She immediately went into wise guy wife mode. She said, Don’t worry about that, you can ask Randy next door to help you with it. Oh yeah? I replied in that incisive, confident, worldly way that is the trade mark of Louie-Louie Generation guys every where.
If you’ve been connected with this blog for awhile, you’ll remember that Randy is my next door neighbor a very nice guy and a fellow plastic potato pop gun warrior. But if you are a Louie-Louie Generation guy, you know damn well there would be a blizzard in August before you would ask your buddy next door for help in assembling ANYTHING, let alone something as simple as an outdoor grill. Ha, I said to my Lady Wonder Wench with a disdain verging on panic. Then she did it. She gave that Lady Wonder Wench Witchy Smile, and purred, Maybe I can help. Any experienced wife will do that when she wants something done quickly and she knows exactly where her husband thinks he has his ego safely hidden.
You probably know the rest of the story. Box manufactured in Taiwan, frame from Bangladesh, bolts made in Kazakhstan that don’t quite fit the nuts imported from Nigeria, and instruction manual written in Baghdad, by a terrorist wannabe who took the job because he was seething with anger at the United States but was rejected for a suicide assignment by his neighborhood terrorist organization by reason of complete insanity. His revenge was swift and sweet helped by the fact that the manufacturer made several models of the grill, but only this one size fits all instruction book. Ooohh, you’ve been there, guys I know you have. But I did it! And the end result bears a distinct resemblance to the picture on the box. Except for the pieces left over. And a wire hanging down. And the kind of rakish angle of the cover. And the propane tank doesn’t fit. But Oh, you’re so wonderful said Wonder Wench as any experienced wife will do when she wants something else done quickly. The Something being that the time has come to cut the lawn for the first time this spring.
I have a question. Why do we cook out? We have a nice kitchen, with a microwave oven and granite counter tops on which we can put our meal. Does hamburger really taste better served with ketchup, relish, flies, bees and moths? And why do guys who never cook indoors, do all the cooking outdoors? I guess women feel that when it comes to smoke, flames and blood on an outdoor grill it’s a guy thing. And while I’m asking you questions, why do we buy grass seed, plant it, water it, fertilize it, grow it, then cut it, and cut it, and cut it, and cut it and then throw away the stuff we cut ? I think something has come loose here besides the handle that looks like it’s about to fall off the propane grill.
Gotta back up a little. If you just connected with this blog, you may be scratching your head and asking, what is the Louie-Louie Generation? If you remember record hops you are a member of the Louie-Louie Generation. I mc’d a lot of record hops when I was a disc jockey. And any time the kids stopped dancing, I’d haul out Louie-Louie and the party would start cooking again. Louie-Louie was the perfect guy dance no complicated dance steps, and an excuse to get very close to a girl’s ear and softly sing your version of the dirty lyrics. I seem to remember that some of the more popular girls liked Louie- Louie too and I think it was for some of the same reasons.
It doesn’t really matter how many birthdays you’ve had you can consider yourself a member of the Louie-Louie Generation if a lot of your conversation these days includes words like prostate, ouch, vitamin E, cholesterol, stress, diet, and whaaaatt? It happened so fast, didn’t it? It seems like just when we started getting rid of our pimples, we began suffering from precocious ab-deflation.
Precocious ab-deflation is a highly technical term I just made up. It comes from the ancient Latin word pre, which means before as in pre-marital sex, and the ancient Brooklyn-ese word coaches which in ancient Brooklyn-ese means wise people as in good sports teams have wise coaches. So precocious ab-deflation means we are losing our abs before we had a chance to get wise to what was going on.
Anyway the hamburger patties are made, there’s a ladle in the potato salad, a couple of cold brewskies with your name on them on the ice so it is now time to turn on the propane, hit the igniter, and hope the back deck doesn’t blow up.
Assuming it doesn’t, we’ll have our first cookout of the year, and then go in and watch a movie… because as you’ll hear in the current podcast, I AM FINISHED WATCHING TV.
Comments about your own struggles with life are always welcome at Dick@DickSummer.com