The Tale of the Traveling Grill

During many of the years we lived in Oakwood, Ohio, we didn’t own a grill and have just, in recent weeks, acquired one. Our first in over 20 years.

For some reason, during that grill-less time in Ohio, we needed one. Our oldest son, who lived a mere mile away, had a grand one. Nice big side arms to hold the food, implements, drinks, and so forth. Multi burners. All kinds of nifty bells and whistles. As it happened, they had access to a truck that week-end and were pleased to loan us their grill.

Whatever we did with it worked out just fine, we didn’t ruin it and everyone was happy.

The time, of course, came to return it. At that point, access to the truck had gone away and we were left with a problem. How to get the thing home. There seemed to be only one way. We would walk it there. The wheels on that grill were not for nothing. It was, remember, a mere mile away.

Two obstacles stood in our way (well, really there were more than two but in our zeal to get the thing home, we ignored them.) The first was the fact that the mile that stood between us and our son’s house was quite hilly. The other was that getting to their house required crossing what is known as Six Points, Oakwood’s largest and busiest intersection. It’s not only Six Points; it’s six lanes.

Undeterred by the realities, we charged ahead with our plan. My husband manned the grill. He put on a billed cap, hoping to achieve anonymity, should our actions be spotted. I followed in my bright red Volvo, front and back warning lights flashing, license plate CATMAX, well known to all in our little town. No anonymity there. But then again, I wasn’t the one walking the grill.

We were doing quite well and made it to Six Points without incident. Being on one of the side streets, we naturally had to wait a spell to get the green light. Finally, it looked like we were next in line. We’re pumped and ready to go. Six lanes it is.   We can do this!

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw our middle son’s car approach the Main Street intersection. Further, I saw him see us. There was no place to hide. We were cooked. He made a sudden left turn from the main drag onto our little side street, rolled down his window and said things to us that still hurt, deeply, to this very day. I can’t repeat them here and will only tell you that references to “old fools” and “obvious lack of good judgment” were made.

I told him in no uncertain terms that all of his unnecessary ranting and raving had caused us to miss the green light for which we had waited so long and so patiently and now we would have go all the way through another extended traffic light sequence thereby putting both grill and car drivers at further risk for problems which we had brilliantly avoided to this point and that if he so much as breathed a single solitary word to anyone or anybody about what he’d just seen he should consider himself disowned and no longer welcome in our home.

My threats were not taken seriously.

We received phone calls with messages that, as above, shall not be repeated here. I will only say that questions regarding our sanity were posed in many forms and sometimes, we felt, in unnecessarily harsh and inconsiderate ways. At least those which we could decipher through choked laughter, which we also deemed to be unkind and thoughtless.

Well, I ask you? What would you have done? I mean when something’s gotta go, it’s gotta go and that grill had to go. It got home; no one was harmed in the process and, now, 20 years later we have our very own grill! Could you ask for anything more?