True Story Tuesday is Back!!!!!

After summer break, it's time to bring back True Story Tuesdays courtesy of Rachel and Mr. Daddy over at Once Upon A Miracle.

Thank you to Crazy Texas Mommy for giving me the idea for this post - I'd almost forgotten this story.

Five or six years ago, my friend Angelina and I decided that we wanted to BBQ one night at her place.  Her husband was working in another state and all we had was one of these things...

Now, I was a single mom for a very, very long time and Angelina was a military wife.  We were pretty self-sufficient, so we thought we could handle one small charcoal grill.  Pretty simple, right?  Pour in the briquettes, spray on the lighter fluid and drop in a match.  Jeeeeeeeeezzzz, if guys can do it certainly two smart women can do it.  Right?

We bought the briquettes...

Sprayed on the lighter fluid...

And added one of these...

No big whoosh, no big flame.  So far, so good.  So we waited for the charcoal to be ready.  We'd been careful to move the grill away from the house just in case of big flame, but it appeared our caution had been unnecessary.

And we waited.

And we waited.

And we got hungry.

And impatient.

So we did what any male would do.  We added more of this...

And we waited.

And we waited.

And the kids got hungry.

Now, we had two hungry women and three hungry children and the coals still weren't ready.

We'd tried what we thought any male would do to make the coals heat faster, but that wasn't working so we started thinking like women.  The coals were putting off a little bit of heat and were taking their time turning gray.

I'm not sure who had the idea to add more heat to the grill, but we suddenly thought it would be a brilliant idea to hit it with a blow dryer.  Angelina ran upstairs, got her blow dryer and plugged it in.  We aimed it at the coals - but not too close - and let loose.  After a short bit, the coals started glowing and we finally got to eat!

After we stuffed ourselves, the kids went off to play and Angelina and I hung out waiting for the coals to die down.  A couple of hours passed and I had to take the kids home to put them to bed.  The coals still hadn't died down.  We put the lid on the grill and closed the air vent to suffocate it; we didn't give it another thought.  The heathi and I went home and Angelina went to bed.

When Angelina's husband came home three days later, those darn coals were still smoldering!  We might have over-done it a wee bit on the charcoal thing. 

Maybe.