Why is buying a grill such a hassle?

I have a confession to make. I’ve been avoiding you, faithful readers. And one of those reasons is that I’ve moved into a new place with my lovely girlfriend. And such a monumental undertaking can be a bit stressful, and time-consuming. But let me wax philosophical about my most recent purchase for our new abode: a grill.

I’ve been skeeching off of other people’s grills for some time. Now that I have a new place of my own, I needs me my own grill. See, I’m a cooking fool. And a gas grill makes it so damn easy to cook. I’m not exactly busting at the seems with cash after said move, so I needed a little help with getting my grubby little hands on my own flesh cooking apparatus. My dad wanted to get us a house-warming gift, so he lent me his credit-card to go pick one up.

Sounds simple enough, right? Just head to Home Depot and get one of those snazzy grills they’re unloading at a discount before the “new models” arrive and head back home. Not so fast. There are a number of obstacles to overcome before I can make such a purchase, let alone actually have the thing cooking meat on the porch. More on these so-called ‘obstacles’ after the jump.

Begin Phase 1

First of all, my girlfriend was out of town, so I was at the house by myself. What does that mean? It means I have no motivation to get up and do anything productive, because its the weekend and why should I clean or take a shower if I’m not going to get any poonany anyway?

My second obstacle is none other than the evil World of Warcraft. I hate to admit that I even play the game, especially since I went so long without giving into its addictive gaping maw. Coupled with obstacle number one, this means I don’t get out of the house to buy the grill until about 6:30pm on Sunday.

Moving on to obstacle three, which is the fact that Home Depot closes at 6pm on Sundays. Now where the hell am I going to go? I know! The next best thing to Wal-Mart: Meijer! Those bitches are open 24 hours too! Those muhfuggas just have to have the grill I want, right?

Which brings me to obstacle numero quatro: sales people at Meijer are even less helpful than those jackasses at Wal-Mart. I find the grill model I want within 5 minutes. But there isn’t a grill-in-a-box to be seen. I check the top-stock on that entire side of the store and even head to the abandoned lawn & garden department to see if they might be outside. Not a one anywhere. And during my whole search I did not run into a single Meijer employee. Which means in 10,000 square feet of a 25,000 square foot store, there was not one employee. Bare in mind now, I hate having to ask for help. If I want to purchase something, I want to be able to walk into a store, get it myself, take it to the register, pay for it, and get the fuck out. Since I can’t find the damn grill myself, I’m out of options. I have to corner one of these squirrelly employee bastards if I have any hope of leaving the store with my beloved grill. I spot a conspicuous looking douchebag out of the corner of my eye. He’s standing behind what appears to be a photo counter across the store, and he has on what looks to be a Meijer-brand employee vest. Yes! I found one, and he’s trapped in there!

I saunter on up to the counter and try to get the bastard’s attention. The normal *cough* and clearing of throat don’t seem to be doing the trick. He seems to be enthralled by an advertisement circular for one of Meijer’s competitors which he’s reading, head in hands, elbows on counter. OK, so maybe this isn’t going to be as simple as I thought. I do the *AHEM!* one more time, and Mr. “I’m in high school and I shouldn’t have to be working this crappy job” still acts like he doesn’t hear me. Now I’m a little pissed. I break out my booming-authority voice and ask him if he can get anyone to help me with the gas grills. He jumps a little, probably because he thought I would just go away if he ignored me long enough, but all he does is turn partially to me and give me this look like, “How dare you disturb my viewing of the new Sears lingerie ad from today’s paper!” He doesn’t even take both elbows off the counter, let alone walk closer so he can hear me. I ask him again, a little too loudly for conversation, and he nods that he’ll call someone.

Great! I’m finally going to get someone who can help me get the fuck out of this retail hell! I stand back over by the grills for more than ten minutes before another 18 year old comes up and asks if I need any help. I point to the grill I want and ask how I can buy one and put it in my truck. In a split second I know I am dealing with a guy that has never worked in this part of the store and has no desire to ever learn what they do in this part of the store. His face goes through about 10 versions of conflicted emotion and confusion. He starts to look around and before he can start checking the same damn places I just did, I tell him I already have and that he needs to check somewhere not accessible to customers. It was like a light went on! His face brightens, and he says he’ll “go check in the back!” Awesome! I love when I get that line from retail employees. Take it from a former retail worker, the phrase “I’ll go check in the back” is code for “I’ll be gone for about 15 minutes and during that time I will accomplish nothing productive, unless you call taking a monster dump while thumbing through last month’s issue of Maxim productive.” Likewise, I wasn’t counting on positive results.

So I twiddled my thumbs for 15 minutes and hoped for the best. And like a Phoenix rising from the ashes of mediocre aspirations, I finally see the guy wheeling a big box on a flat cart in my direction. Maybe these buffoons can provide a wee bit of service! The Meijer associate finally makes his way to me and apologizes for such a long wait. He does indeed have the grill I want on the flat cart. But before I can thank him, he utters a phrase that makes me want to slap the baby fat off his face. And I’m quoting verbatim, no artistic license taken whatsoever:

“Man, that thing is heavy! So good luck getting it into your vehicle.”

What? Oh no you didn’t! I know I’m not going to need any help getting the damn thing into my truck, but the audacity of this idiot is beyond me. And the guy didn’t even realize what he was saying. He wasn’t being vindictive either. To him, he was sincerely wishing me luck in getting the box, which caused him to breathe heavy and pant with his tongue out, into my vehicle. He didn’t comprehend the following:

1. He just told me he had no intention EVER of helping me get it out to my truck
2. And he had no intention of calling anyone else to help me get it out to my truck

Seriously? After the bullshit I had to go through because I couldn’t help myself, you’re going to talk to me like that? I would never even dream of asking for this guy’s help, but the fact he just told me it wasn’t his job even if I was thinking about asking made me want to kick him in the nuts. I just shook my head and walked away. I left Meijer thinking Wal-Mart would have at least had 2 or 3 people tell me it wasn’t their job.

Begin Phase 2

Fast forward to the next day. I’m ready to get this summamabitch put together so I can start cooking animal parts on petroleum-powered flames. I’m home from work, and my girl gets home in about an hour, how awesome would it be if I was grilling her dinner when she got there?

I mean, it won’t take me more than 20 minutes to slap this bitch together, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong.

If you’ve ever bought a grill or bought one for someone else, you may have noticed how the nicer ones have dropped in price in the last 5 years. $200 can purchase one hell of grilling machine nowadays, but you poor schmucks who got into the grilling game a few years ago had to spend $200 just to get a grill with legs that didn’t rust apart in 6 months.

I had never given much thought to this price trend until I opened the box in the middle of my living room. I couldn’t believe how much crap they crammed into that thing. Every nook and cranny was stuffed with a part or a smaller box. It took me an hour just to unpack the damn thing. I had pieces all over the place. And when I put all of the trash from the internal packaging back in the box, I couldn’t shut the lid. It didn’t make sense to me. I have everything important out of the box, but just putting the miscellaneous packing material back in the box took up more room? What kind of twilight zone was I in? I know why the prices keep dropping! They just order a bunch of parts from all of over the world, stuff them in a box together and hope they fit when a customer stupid enough to buy one tries to put it together.
Needless to say, I didn’t fix my girlfriend dinner when she got home, and I spent the next 2 1/2 hours putting the damn grill together. I wheeled it out on the porch, and was finally able to revel in my success. Only trouble was, it was 11:30pm and I didn’t feel like grilling the first meal on my new meat sizzler while fighting sleep deprivation and potential 2nd degree burns on my face.

Moral of the Story

If someone is going to get you a house-warming gift, make sure its something that doesn’t require assembly.

If you need to get yourself a new grill, don’t go to a store. Wonder your neighborhood and inconspicuously sneak peeks in backyards looking for a new grill purchase. Once you spot a new one (that’s fully assembled!), approach that particular neighbor and offer him twice what he paid for it to take it off his hands. Then wheel that bitch back over to your place and enjoy yourself!