Grills, Grills, Grills

A decade after wrapping up puberty and eight months into marriage, I finally became a man last week. I bought a grill.
Now don't get me wrong, I've got plenty of grill experience. I've had a few in my day, but I had never gotten a hold of a real full-bodied beauty like the Weber queen I picked out last week.
It sounds kind of sad and sick, but all of my previous grills were either community grills anybody could use and abuse for their own pleasure or hand-me-downs from my parents.
When I was in college, they gave me this petite little thing that required me to spend a lot of time on my knees to fan the flames. I didn't pay enough attention to her and she rusted out before we could establish a lasting relationship.
For years I missed the heat and smell of outdoor cooking, but my bachelor lifestyle never allowed me to settle down long enough to find a replacement.
Then I found the perfect girl and married her. It wasn't long after that I learned it doesn't matter how great your marriage is, it doesn't hurt to have a grill on the outside.
The wife and I actually went together to go pick her out. The story gets a little less sexy from here. For some reason when I was young and fantasized about having a grill, I would imagine going to some testosterone dream factory where there were a bunch pretty ones just lined up waiting to go home with you.
I found mine at Target, but I'm OK with that because this luscious 22.5 inch hottie looks and feels just like the grills of my dreams -- but came at a bargain price.
She looks so good that it's almost a shame to keep her in the backyard, but Carolina -- that wife I talked about earlier -- won't allow her in the house.
While I'm obviously proud of my new trophy grill, I have to admit our brief time together hasn't been without its difficulties.
Just like a good woman, a grill can be a complicated thing. There are so many different levers and heating techniques and I haven't quite gotten the hang of the whole thing yet.
The owner's manual/cookbook that came with her said if it's 70 degrees outside with little wind and fair to partly cloudy skies, it should take about four minutes to cook each side of the burger. It took me 35 minutes to get my patties to stop mooing.
At the 40 minute mark I couldn't take it anymore. I was hungry. Apparently, I pulled the burgers off prematurely because Carolina's weren't done. She said I needed more heat.
I was dejected. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.
But my understanding wife, my girl who always knows the right thing to say, cheered me up.
"This was only your first time," she said. "We have years to keep practicing."
I can't wait.

Our Linda

I'm feeling really grown up right now.
First there was the wedding. I have a wife and I'm a husband and that's great. I promise not to write about this any more -- except maybe in the next paragraph.
You get some really nice adult gifts when you get married.
Not "adult" in that highway billboard "open 24 hours/truckers welcome" type way, but "adult" in the shimmery kitchen counter appliances/crystal bowl type way.
If there's anybody out there contemplating a marriage proposal my advice would be to go for it. Especially if you need a new coffee pot.
Anyway, more than just the wedding and the accompanying George Foreman Grill with built-in bun warmer, what has made me feel most grown up is our recent purchase of a new home.
How can you take on 30 years worth of debt and not feel grown up? With all that money involved, buying a house was way more stressful than getting married.
I knew I wanted to love, honor and cherish Carolina for the rest of my life, but I wasn't so sure I could say the same about a little house in Mauldin or Simpsonville.
You see? I'm so nervous about taking on this new adult experience that I'm not even sure where I live. My street address says Simpsonville, but Mauldin City picks up the trash. At least that's what they told us. After two weeks in the house the mailbox is empty and the trash can is full.
We bought one of those nice, quaint little new homes that one of those big-money, mega-real estate developers are plotting around the outskirts of Greenville. It's a great first house with a fenced piece of orange dirt in back. I have no complaints.
Because we liked the house so much, we rushed back from our honeymoon so we could attend the much-dreaded "closing."
Everyone I talked to told me to fear the closing. "Are you ready to close?" they would ask. It was as if we were conjoined twins being prepped for our separation surgery.
Truth be told, it really wasn't that bad. Becky, the nice lady who deemed our personalities and credit histories worthy of a home loan, came with us to this very professional old law firm in downtown Greenville to help us through the process.
There we met the lawyer who would handle our closing, we'll call him S. Courtney Hootie Monroe Richman, III.
He was exactly the type of guy on which Hollywood built its stereotype of an old Southern lawyer. He was well-groomed, well-mannered and probably extremely well-off.
S. Courtney Hootie Monroe Richman, III had one hoot'na of an accent, too. At one point, I thought the deal was going to fall through because he called Becky the wrong name.
Becky seemed to be old friends with Mr. S.C.H.M.R. III, so I was a little embarrassed myself when he said, "Now it is indeed a ray-yah occasion to have our Linda here with us."
"Oh no! He just called Becky 'Linda.' The deal's over. We're through," I thought.
Carolina was stone-faced. It took me a minute to realize he meant "Lender" in his own Southern way.
So, I was a little intimidated after that. But as we prepared to sign our life away, Mr. S.C.H.M.R., III put us at ease as he carefully explained all of the papers we were about to sign.
At one point when tension in the room was mounting over a mistake on the final price of the home included on the contract, S. Courtney Hootie Monroe Richman, III cooled things down by telling us a story about his family's first trip to Disney World.
It seems Mr. Richman was a little groggy on his first morning in the Magic Kingdom. As he brushed his teeth heartily with an oddly oily and bland flavor of toothpaste in the dark bathroom of the Luxury Goofy Suite, he slowly realized he had instead squeezed a dollop of hemorrhoid cream onto his brush.
It was a great story to hear from the man overseeing the legality of the biggest purchase I'll ever make.