June 30, 2006
1) Lift a keg of Harvey's on top of a stool.
2) Manage to spend half an hour producing poop in the bathroom, during which I will have read half of the latest edition of the Screw-Fix catalog and sorted out the new ratchet wrenches I need.
3) Get myself completely lost and whiz around puke-inducing back country roads with a wave of the hand and the comment "What's the rush, babe?"
4) Find Ali G's alternate Borat funny.
And 5-this is key here-I really suck at barbecueing.
Not only that, but I am not remotely interested in barbecueing. The only fun element I can see in this is lighting a fire, and why not set up a bunch of tea lights instead? Let's see-open package of bright red dead animal. Insert marinade on dead animal. Open grill and find remnants of last dead animal grilled, which need to be scraped or else cause weird icky germy disease. Light fire. Spend ages nursing beer and fucking around with fire. Place dead animal on metal cage over fire. Ponce around trying to get dead animal sufficiently cooked. Serve, ridge of carbon dating on side optional.
Right. Wheeeeeeee. How fun.
So I totally allow the men-folk to do the barbecueing.
I don't even enjoy buying the dead animal (and it is a weird thing doing so, as I'm a veggie.)
I went to Waitrose on Thursday evening to start off the barbecue process. As we have over 30 people coming, I knew this would be the first jaunt of many. I loaded up with the basics of round 1. In the cart went most of the veggies before I walked my ass to the meat counter.
Behind the counter was a woman wearing every color of the L'Oreal Starter Eye Shadow Kit. I stared at her.
"Can I help?" she asks, unsmiling.
I look behind her, in case a My Little Pony is prancing around back there before it hits the butcher's block.
"I need pork spare ribs," I say hesitantly. She blinks and I am temporarily blinded by the light off her Rainbow Brite lids.
"How many?"
"Ummm...." I hesitate. This is where I show my true dead animal ignorance. "I dunno?" I ask. I am trying to figure out how she blended turquoise and pink eyeshadow so seamlessly.
"How many people?"
"Ummm....20 adults?" I wager not all of them are rip-the-gristle-from-the-bone kind of people.
"That's a lot of ribs." she says, unblinking.
"No shit." I reply.
That makes her blink.
"We're not going to have that many ribs," she says assuredly.
"What, in the shop or, like, ever?" I reply.
"Before the weekend. All we have is these," and she plunks down some already barbecued baby back ribs the size of the Baby Jesus.
"Jesus," I say in recognition.
I don't really like that they're already barbecued. I distrust this. I have no idea what the English notion of barbecue is, but I am sure it won't align with my Texas thinking. Although, really, I am perhaps being pretentious-the truth is, I really hate barbecue sauce. I purchase two packages of these huge bastards and a package of pork spare ribs. I load up on two huge packages of minced beef for the burgers as well.
People are staring at my cart. It is overloaded with the Atkins Wet Dream.
When I check out, it gets worse. The old biddy behind me is terribly sweet but terribly nosy. She looks at the 6 pounds of potatoes that I lay on the cart. She looks at me.
"I'm worried that Y2K is secretly delayed, and it's really coming now," I say by way of explanation. "I'm preparing to bunker down."
Her eyebrows raise. She watches the 24 ears of sweet corn make their way down the belt.
"Yeah, bunker down. Me and my rabbit."
She stares at me. Then she sees the entire virtual pig that I load up on the cart.
"The rabbit, his existence is expendable," I say meekly. "Until then, I've got Some Pig."
She sniffs and turns. I have purchased Round 1 of the Great 4th of July Feast, 2006. I'll need it-turns out the England/Portugal semi-finals are on at the same time, and that means hungry people. Luckily, I'll do most of the sides (and Angus and I are having a brownie bake-off as he has the nerve to suggest his brownies are better than mine) and my dear boy will get to barbecue while nursing pints of his favorite bitter. Because Angus? He loves to barbecue.
Maybe we all get to be our own perfect idol when we do things that feel like it should be second nature to us. Men barbecue and get to feel like the Real Man, the Real Man who does Real Man things, maybe like rescue women from wildcats on the mountain side and ejaculate on expensive 4x4s. Real Man can be on the starting line-up for England on Saturday, and in doing so will be able to use Posh Beckham as a railroad tie to get to a Scarlett Johnasson/Angelina Jolie threesome planned in the window of Harrod's.
I don't mind. In my Real Woman world, after all, I have calves of steel and bed hair and I run around in fishnets and stilettos shouting in a gravelly voice "Who runs Bartertown? I RUN BARTERTOWN!"
Posted by: Everydaystranger at
07:03 AM
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Posted by: caltechgirl at June 30, 2006 08:23 AM (Armyk)
? Have a fabulous barbeque anyway, around here dinner is planned, and an angry Irishman is cooking. Just because of that I hope England looses. Just because of that, of course
.Posted by: miguel at June 30, 2006 08:25 AM (9gg1P)
Posted by: Z. Hendirez at June 30, 2006 08:57 AM (otB//)
Posted by: K David at June 30, 2006 12:24 PM (pW0NG)
Posted by: Swamp at June 30, 2006 01:05 PM (oMGhn)
Posted by: Paul at June 30, 2006 02:11 PM (vbP6L)
Posted by: Victor at June 30, 2006 02:19 PM (L3qPK)
Have a good weekend!Posted by: sue at June 30, 2006 05:40 PM (WbfZD)
Posted by: jah at June 30, 2006 07:17 PM (V45OB)
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