Today our electric grill arrived in the mail. I was very excited. Hubby was, too. Then we opened the box. As we began to unpack it, we saw there were about a million bazillion pieces and many of them itty-bitty, teeny-tiny. OMG. I mean, you can’t send it to me pre-assembled? Who do you think I am, Elon Musk? But I had done my writing for the day, hubby his music, and there we were. We couldn’t go anywhere, anyway.

It was not what you’d call an easy-peasy project. All this stuff with screwdrivers and small pieces you sit on or fall under the table or you can’t find right away, and when you DO find them, they won’t go into the hole! It can be unnerving. For instance, we put something onto something and attached 3 of bolts E to join them together, as directed in diagram 3. Then we moved on to another piece of something or other that connected to a thingie with Bolts F. We finished this masterpiece, whatever it was, and were mightily pleased with ourselves. See? A musician and a writer CAN put something together.

But we were too smug. It was wrong. It was back to front, doncha know. There was no way the lid or whatever that stupid thing is that keeps the smoke from escaping the grill would go on. We had to take the entire thing apart and start all over again. Curses rang out, Ellie ran under the bed, and we actually had to have a time out. Or lunch. A BLT on toast.

But we are not shirkers. We persevered. After two solid hours, we finally put together something that looked like a grill! Filled with a sense of achievement, I decided to go online and see if there were any tips for grilling meat on it. I found a video on YouTube done by a smart alec know-it-all, who assembled the grill as the video was running. Plus, he had the effrontery to say that putting it together was so simple, any 6-year-old could do it in 15 minutes. Then he mumbled something about maybe even a 4-year-old. I gave off a hollow laugh. That was all I could do.

I decided I was too tired to grill today, maybe tomorrow. But I wasn’t too tired to ask hubby to make me a martini. And he had a pear martini. Yes, you could say we were driven to drink by a grill and a screwdriver.