Men and Instructions

Our wonderful gas grill has kicked the bucket, so to speak. It’s still standing on our patio but refuses to light up.

What a contrary piece of equipment.

So, until we order the necessary parts to make the grill happy once again, we have resorted to using charcoal instead.

Now, the charcoal grill has only been used when certain people went camping.

Note to readers: I was NOT one of those certain people who went camping.

And no one has been camping in several years. But we were determined to make it work.

For the past few weeks, dinner has gone wonderfully. We had grilled food so all was right in the world.

Last night, it was Alex’s turn to grill steaks for us. But Dave had to be at church for a meeting until almost 7.

Dad thought ahead and got the charcoal in the grill ready to light before leaving for church. You see, neither Alex nor I have ever done that before.

The plan was to have dinner ready when dad got home.

That was the plan.

About thirty minutes after he left, Alex went out to light the grill. And nothing happened.

He and I both tried for twenty minutes. Nothing. No spark, no fire, no nothing.

We finally gave up.

Turns out, once you put charcoal in the grill, you are supposed to light it immediately. It is the first instruction on the charcoal bag.

An instruction that a certain male neglected to read.

“Hey, I was just trying to be helpful!”

True, but next time….read the directions!