This is the story of a grill who volunteered to feed the whole world

I love to volunteer. One of my favorite aspects of volunteering is the part when I get to complain about volunteering.  I could win an award.  Two years ago, I was somehow coerced, against my will, to assist each Sunday in counting the offering.  My friend, Sandy who can actually count with a measure of accuracy and has amazing nails, trained me and retrained me, week after week, tirelessly showing me which columns to fill out, how to subtract what from what, patiently demonstrating how to point dollar bills in the same direction.  After a sufficient amount of time had elapsed, she finally gave up and I became a glorified accounting cheerleader.

During another volunteering opportunity, I found myself in a bleak, mold-encrusted room which needed to be cleaned with its cement-block walls re-painted.  My enthusiastic bleach-to-water ratio resulted in immediate asphyxiation but, as this was a church function, did not cause us to be evacuated.  Using the air purification abilities provided by the Holy Spirit, we soldiered on.  Discriminated against, as usual, because of my height, I was assigned to paint the area closest to the ceiling but my arms quickly fatigued plus I wanted to use a roller.  Begrudgingly reassigned, I soon tired of the roller and switched over to the paint-by-number brush so I could sit comfortably to perform the painstaking trim work.  Someone in the hall had a nifty electric tool that removed grout so I hurried over to supervise and then, take over that task.  Must I do everything?  

A recent middle school social event required the use of a grill.  A petitioning email was quickly dispatched to the entire staff.  Apparently no one actually checks their email at my school so it was then remembered that I had volunteered the use of my grill three years ago.  I did? Oh...ok.  I brought up the fact that, while I was more than happy to share the use of my grill, transportation was a sensitive issue as the bed of my little Ford Ranger sports more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese. No problem, I was told, transportation would be arranged.  Super!

Super?!?  My husband stared at me as I shared the news of our benevolent spirit.  I couldn't understand his reaction.  "Let me put this in a way that maybe you'll understand," he growled, "if I lent out your stove to a bunch of people at work, how would you feel?"  Oh.  "I would be cleaning my stove like crazy," I responded meekly, recalling what happened the last time I cleaned my stove (see the 4/28 blog entitled "Where there's smoke...reflections on the hazards of hostessing").  I felt just horrible, sitting there with my feet up, watching television, while Brad spend an hour preparing our grill for its service to our school.

The next day, three administrative elves arrived at my house in the afternoon to pick up the waiting grill.  Despite its battered appearance and broken burner, it proudly grilled roasted wienies to over a hundred hungry children.  Never had it felt so validated and purposeful.

My husband, obviously not as service-minded and generous as me, thoughtlessly wondered when he was going to get his grill back.  "For goodness sake, Brad, you can't wait one...oops, two days?"  "Well," he countered (somewhat vindictively, I felt), "what do you have planned for dinner?"  Oh.  We went down to the school on Saturday and searched the building to no avail.  Let's just say that tuna noodle casserole pales in comparison to grilled tuna steaks.

A brief consulting session with an administrator resulted in miscommunication about when, where, and how my grill would make its victorious return home. Take two:  Tuesday.  Apparently no one in the school has a grill of their own OR a truck so my friend Kelly borrowed her husband's work vehicle.  My little grill was scheduled to make its much-anticipated arrival to our wing and when it, shockingly did not, we had it tracked down to the far side of the building and made an appointment with a brawny administrator to help us load up.  Voila! The grill showed up so Kel and I drove the truck over to load it. Uh...yeah.  The two of us sized up the situation and made ready to lift the propane grill up to shoulder-level to slide it into the waiting truck bed.  Metal edges bit into our hands, the awkwardly proportioned unit dangerously shifted, I may have squealed in fear, despair, or anticipated pain.  After several attempts, it was decided to get some additional muscle.  "Preferably someone with a fully functional shoulder who can walk in an upright position without a noticeable limp," Kelly said, hinting that perhaps I wasn't pulling my fair weight.  Our muscle arrived, in the form of 5th grade teacher Amanda, who I outweigh three times over.  I glared at Kelly.  We lifted the grill from the bottom, groaning as it leaned alarmingly, causing us to stagger back while we failed desperately in our noble attempt to tip it toward the truck. The Israelites hauling that Ark around had nothing on us. "How did you get it here," Amanda asked in disgust.  We described how three muscular men effortlessly made the initial delivery so naturally three intelligently competent women should be able to duplicate the task.

As no knight-in-shining-armor seemed to be on hand, these three damsels in distress finally wrestled the fiery dragon into its cage.  Bruised, smudged but victorious, we returned the grill to its rightful kingdom.  "You should have seen it," Brad told Savannah when she came home, "the grill arrived in about thirty different pieces."  "Your father is exaggerating, as usual," I said scornfully.  "Your friend said we should take a picture of it," he responded.  Later, while he restored the leaning-tower-of-grilling to its original state of magnificence, my husband graciously reassured me that he would support any future decisions to lend out our grill for the betterment of humankind.  I, however, have decided to stick with the "is it smaller than a breadbox" rule-of-thumb.  I vow to only lend objects that I can personally transport easily even with a semi-functioning shoulder and a minor limp.  "No you won't," Brad said, "we're going to end up in the same situation before you know it."  "Whatever," I snapped, "I don't know what you think you have to complain about."