MuthaF*cking BBQ
SON. OF. A. BITCH.
Soooo, Mom fell down the hill today while helping a neighbor move her deck furniture down into the basement...she didn't fall completely down; however, she DID trip and scrape her elbow and wrench her knee pretty bad. It's not swelling or anything, so she thinks that she just pulled a muscle, but...
Anyway. We're talking about what to do for dinner. Mom had taken some burger out of the freezer, and she asked me how it should be prepared. She gave me two choices: either it could be pan-fried and we'd have fried burgers, or we could have burgers on the grill. I don't know what came over me; it was a knee-jerk reaction probably brought on by a hidden longing to keep summer around for as long as humanly possible. But I replied "burgers on the grill," to which she immediatly rolls her eyes and says that she'll set up the grill. Knowing suddenly that she is reguarding this as a wrong answer, I call after her "ok, pan fried! PAN FRIED!" But to no avail.
So I follow her outside, stating that since I want grilled burgers, I would handle it. I poured the charcoal into our little mini-grill and grabbed some matches. I knew from grilling steaks with Joey only a few weeks before that this particular charcoal was an 'E-Z lite', meaning you didn't have to add any additional lighter fluid or things of that nature. Just light and go. Well I ready the matches and mom snaps that we didn't add any lighter fluid. I explain that it doesn't need it and attempt to light the grill. I have to say this: I hate f*cking cardboard matches. I think they're useless. You swipe them one time across the little black sandpaper strip and if you didn't succeed at your first try to light it, the little cardboard stalk gets all bent out of shape and warped, to the point where any additional time you attempt to light it, it just flops around like a little rag doll. I prefer wooden matches, because they're much sturdier and they save you time and effort. Do you think that we had any of the wooden matches? Nope.
I finally get the damn cardboard matches to light, and now what is this? The coals won't ignite because it's too muthaf*cking windy out? Sonofabitch.
Finally, one of the flames is granted a toehold and it slowly starts to eat away at one large chunk of coal. Of course, since the BBQ gods are laughing their asses off at me by this point, this tiny little flame is STAYING a tiny little flame. It is not spreading to the other coal. It's just dancing a jive with this one chunk of coal, as I'm trying to hurry to light another match and spread the flame-y joy to the other side of the grill. My attempts go ignored and my one tiny little triumph of a flame goes out. Finally, mom comes out and asks what the holdup is. She rolls her eyes at me again, as if saying she knew that I couldn't handle it, and squirts a stream of lighter fluid onto the coals. Then she lights one more match and starts to burn the charcoal.
I wander inside, my hands now smelling like smoke and grumbling discontentedly to myself. Mom, I've noticed, has sliced up an onion and thrown it in with the meat. I remember from grilling the steaks with Joey that I still have some dry onion soup mix in the pantry, and by george, I could make the meat taste even better than with just the regular onion! My spirit renewed, I trot over to the pantry and excitedly dig through the dry mix packets until I find the onion soup. I wander back over to where the burger is sitting on the counter, unaware of its tasty, tasty fate. I start to tear open the packet when mom swoops in from out of nowhere and seizes the dry onion soup mix. "What do you think you're doing??" She exclaims, "I already PUT some chopped up onion with the burger! Are you trying to kill us with onion flavoring??"
Sonofabitch. I guess the moral of the story is "when you're facing someone as stubborn as my mom, EVEN IF you're trying to save them the trouble because they're hurt, DON'T BOTHER. They will bite your head off undeservingly. If instead, you sit back and let them do everything and they bitch about it later, AT LEAST you will still have your dignity in tact. And your hands won't smell like smoke."
Soooo, Mom fell down the hill today while helping a neighbor move her deck furniture down into the basement...she didn't fall completely down; however, she DID trip and scrape her elbow and wrench her knee pretty bad. It's not swelling or anything, so she thinks that she just pulled a muscle, but...
Anyway. We're talking about what to do for dinner. Mom had taken some burger out of the freezer, and she asked me how it should be prepared. She gave me two choices: either it could be pan-fried and we'd have fried burgers, or we could have burgers on the grill. I don't know what came over me; it was a knee-jerk reaction probably brought on by a hidden longing to keep summer around for as long as humanly possible. But I replied "burgers on the grill," to which she immediatly rolls her eyes and says that she'll set up the grill. Knowing suddenly that she is reguarding this as a wrong answer, I call after her "ok, pan fried! PAN FRIED!" But to no avail.
So I follow her outside, stating that since I want grilled burgers, I would handle it. I poured the charcoal into our little mini-grill and grabbed some matches. I knew from grilling steaks with Joey only a few weeks before that this particular charcoal was an 'E-Z lite', meaning you didn't have to add any additional lighter fluid or things of that nature. Just light and go. Well I ready the matches and mom snaps that we didn't add any lighter fluid. I explain that it doesn't need it and attempt to light the grill. I have to say this: I hate f*cking cardboard matches. I think they're useless. You swipe them one time across the little black sandpaper strip and if you didn't succeed at your first try to light it, the little cardboard stalk gets all bent out of shape and warped, to the point where any additional time you attempt to light it, it just flops around like a little rag doll. I prefer wooden matches, because they're much sturdier and they save you time and effort. Do you think that we had any of the wooden matches? Nope.
I finally get the damn cardboard matches to light, and now what is this? The coals won't ignite because it's too muthaf*cking windy out? Sonofabitch.
Finally, one of the flames is granted a toehold and it slowly starts to eat away at one large chunk of coal. Of course, since the BBQ gods are laughing their asses off at me by this point, this tiny little flame is STAYING a tiny little flame. It is not spreading to the other coal. It's just dancing a jive with this one chunk of coal, as I'm trying to hurry to light another match and spread the flame-y joy to the other side of the grill. My attempts go ignored and my one tiny little triumph of a flame goes out. Finally, mom comes out and asks what the holdup is. She rolls her eyes at me again, as if saying she knew that I couldn't handle it, and squirts a stream of lighter fluid onto the coals. Then she lights one more match and starts to burn the charcoal.
I wander inside, my hands now smelling like smoke and grumbling discontentedly to myself. Mom, I've noticed, has sliced up an onion and thrown it in with the meat. I remember from grilling the steaks with Joey that I still have some dry onion soup mix in the pantry, and by george, I could make the meat taste even better than with just the regular onion! My spirit renewed, I trot over to the pantry and excitedly dig through the dry mix packets until I find the onion soup. I wander back over to where the burger is sitting on the counter, unaware of its tasty, tasty fate. I start to tear open the packet when mom swoops in from out of nowhere and seizes the dry onion soup mix. "What do you think you're doing??" She exclaims, "I already PUT some chopped up onion with the burger! Are you trying to kill us with onion flavoring??"
Sonofabitch. I guess the moral of the story is "when you're facing someone as stubborn as my mom, EVEN IF you're trying to save them the trouble because they're hurt, DON'T BOTHER. They will bite your head off undeservingly. If instead, you sit back and let them do everything and they bitch about it later, AT LEAST you will still have your dignity in tact. And your hands won't smell like smoke."