Frazod's Epic Grill Disaster
 

I'll probably regret posting this, but what the hell. I'm sure you guys can use a good laugh for the next few years. This one may surpass the refrigerator, since the appliance in question did not survive.

Yesterday, as I spent about an hour cleaning my grill, I thought that it might be nice to get a new one at some point. The grill is nine years old, a bit worse for wear, small and lacking any extras. I use it pretty much daily during the summer. So today, I planned to grill chicken for lunch. I store my grilling tools inside the grill when not in use, and remove them when I'm cooking. Well, this day, I removed all but one.

It was sunny, so I had my sunglasses on. The inside of the grill is black, and so was the handle of the plastic grill brush/scraper that I neglected to remove from the back of the top rack. I should have known it was there, but I didn't see it. So I lit the burners and went back inside.

I come out a few minutes later with the food, open the lid and am greeted by a flaming mass of burning, melting plastic. Turning off the burners does not stop it. Flaming goo is starting to drip through the holes at the bottom onto the mat. The wife is freaking out, and I run for the fire extinguisher, which I'd never used before. The second lesson I learned today is if you're aiming a chemical extinguisher into an enclosed space, you might want to stand back a bit. Soon the grill, the deck and myself were enveloped in a cloud of white flame reerunant which I can still taste a bit as I type this. But the fire's out. The grill was, needless to say, a loss - I doubt if I could have ever effectively cleaned all that melted burned plastic out of it and had no desire to eat toxic fumes with my food.

****.

So the old grill is on the curb waiting for the garbage man, and after a trip to Home Depot and a couple of annoying hours of assembly I now have the brand new, large grill with a thermostat and a side burner that I pondered buying yesterday (grills tend to be on sale this time of year, too!). I already broke it in too - it rocks! I also have a new scraper with a WOODEN handle.

So I guess all's well that ends well. I'll file this under MISTAKES YOU ONLY MAKE ONCE, and feel relieved that I didn't burn my ****ing building down. And I assume my wife will quit busting my balls at some point in the next decade or so.

So how was your Sunday?

Yesterday my cousin tried to butter a piece of bread, then toast it and it caught on fire in the toaster.
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Did the toaster survive? :D

I was charging the air conditioner in the Highlander this afternoon using one of those little canisters full of cold stuff that comes with the gauge attachment. When I connected the canister's line to the low pressure port, the gauge deal and its faceplate shot off the assembly like a rifle bullet missing my face by a millimeter or two at most. The parts (the ones I could find, anyhow) landed about 50 feet away. Apparently, there was plenty of pressure already in the system.

Anyhow, I was "this" close to being ONE EYE FAX after today.

FAX

Thanks, every other self-admitted act of near disastrous stupidity makes me feel a little bit better! :D

I wish someone had taken a picture of me immediately after putting the fire out, standing there with that OH SHIT look on my face covered in white powder from the extinguisher. I can laugh now, but I certainly wasn't amused then.

When I was 11-12 my dad and I were fixing a 5HP Briggs motor for a go-cart that I had rebuilt. We couldn't get the damn thing to start, so we assumed the the spark plug wire was screwed. My dad told me to hold the spark plug lead wire and while he pulled the rip cord to prove our theory.


I found out the hard way that the motor didn't have a plug wire issue.

Now that your grill is dead can I hear another Frazod haunted house story? lol

Sorry, I've only got one. Although one of my friends thinks her recently deceased mother is haunting her house (objects moving, pictures falling off walls, etc.). Not my problem, though.

My electricity lesson at 11 was don't piss on an electric fence. OWWWWWWWWWWWWW

:cuss:

I meant it tongue in cheek. lol

What did you wind up doing with the chicken?

Cooked it for dinner instead of lunch on the new grill. :thumb:

Cool!

Do you live in an apartment? I'm surprised grills aren't banned from balconies, they have been here for years.

Yeah, I didn't dick around replacing it - I was putting the new one together within an hour of nuking the old one.

Townhouse with an uncovered deck. A bunch of ****wits tried to push that grill ban through here a few years ago but they got stomped hard.