>
> Today I bought a new gas BBQ grill. Of course, it came in this humongous box that I could barely lift and that barely fit in my car, but truthfully, getting hit home was only about a tenth of the battle.
>

I bought a gas grill a couple months ago and I, too, had quite the adventure trying to get the humongous box into my car. After exhausting every possible way of getting it into the trunk, I then tried to get it into the back seat. After doing mild damage to some weatherstripping, I ended up opening the box, and placing everything piece by piece into the trunk. I'm sure it was rather entertaining for all of the "real men" around in their big pickup trucks.


(snip)
> After the first few steps were over, I ran into my first missing part. I couldn't for the life of me find the little temperature gauge thing that goes in the grill cover. I hunted and hunted and hunted around, convinced it was lost, and silently cursing the manufacturer. Just as I was about to give up, I found the part lying underneath another part that I could have sworn I'd moved several times.
>

I ran into the same problem. Although it wasn't just one part; it was the little bag of hardware. I *knew* that there must be a little baggie with some screws and bolts around in this pile of parts somewhere. After picking up and essentially frisking every part I had, I looked in the trunk. Yep, there in the corner by that thing that I put in my trunk "just in case" about three hundred years ago. Somehow I missed it while carting every one of my individual pieces from my car, parked on the street, to my backyard.


> Truthfully, I should have known better. There alwasy *is* one part missing in anything you have to assemble yourself, but it's never the *first* thing you think is missing. I was not let down by this rule. I had to search for several parts, but always found them, until my confidence grew to the point where I was certain I'd just misplaced the side-burner grill cover, which was, alas, the last part I went to put on. After turning my house upside down, I finally gave up. I don't have one. It didn't come with one. But of *course*, since I had had my confidence boosted by finding all of those *other* "missing" parts, I searched WAY longer than I should have for this stupid thing, assuming I had just misplaced it.
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> However, I do believe, after much sweat and a few tears, and three and a half hours of work, I finally have a functioning grill. Excuse me while I go take a nap before dinner.
>
> -- Dave
>

Just as I began assembly, my wife got a call from her cousin who was passing through town with her family and wanted to stop by for dinner. I managed to whip it together pretty quickly under the pressure; they arrived minutes before I finished. Then it started to rain.

Tra "It always rains when we have company over to BBQ" nio