Fire.

Cinematic Moment:  Life with Propane.

"Grilling out" has always been a mystifying concept to me, though not unappealing.  As a child, I'd watch my dad carefully pack the charcoal into the grill at the park, throwing lighter fluid on it and striking a long wooden match.  He was like a modern day caveman.  Eventually we upgraded to a propane grill and that was even more intimidating.  I left the actual cooking to the "menfolk" and flopped around on the slip and slide until the burgers were done.  I dreamt of owning a car with buttery leather seats, a house with marble floors that smelled constantly like cinnamon, a rolodex, a car phone (yeah, I'm old as dirt).  The thought never crossed my mind that I might, one day, have a grill to call my own.

Last week, momnpopinlaw decided we needed one so we could eat outside on the deck.  I was taken aback by the suggestion, not because I didn't want a grill--it's just that it was like asking if I wanted to pilot a commercial flight to San Francisco.  I hadn't seriously considered it because grilling was a foreign language.  A foreign language made of spontaneous combustion and accidental fires that could singe off your eyebrows.  Nevertheless, it was new and exciting and potentially disastrous, so of course I jumped on the "let's buy a grill" wagon.

The boyfrianceband and I went and picked one out, hoisting it into the old van.  He had to hold it in place the whole way home as it slipped back and forth on its new wheels, chattering the whole way as if it were telling us a story.  Once we got it on the deck, we installed the propane tank, hung up the sweet new tools we got, unpacked the cover.  Then I wiped it down, centered it on the rug, wiped it down again--anything to avoid actually lighting the damn thing.

After reading the directions about 100 times front to back, I was thoroughly terrified.  Who knew spiders could take up residency in the tubing and cause a backward explosion?  And what's all this talk about propane leaks?  A simple "how to" would have been sufficient without turning the grill into the next weapon of mass destruction that I willingly brought into my backyard.  Eventually, we bit the bullet and my man lit the thing.  No fireworks, no burning balls of propane shooting towards our faces.  Just a smooth even flame, safely contained.  

 After sampling our first round of delicious meats, it's safe to say momnpopinlaw have created a monster.  A grilling monster.