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The All-New! Saga of the Grill, and, ohmyGOD Xandir is so very gay.
All of a sudden, quite against my will, I find myself embroiled in yet another saga. So, too, do I drag my handful of faithful readers into it with me. There will be a quiz at the end, so pay attention.
See, about a year ago the city of Aurora banned the use of gas grills with propane tanks of a certain size on balconies. At first I cursed the inconvenience of no longer being able to use our Patio Caddy™, but on second thought living next to a meth lab for 2 years has certainly taught us a thing or two about blindly trusting that our neighbors share our safety standards. I wanted to get Tery a new smaller grill for her birthday, but since that isn't until July that would be half the summer gone with no grill, and that's simply unacceptable. Long story short(er), we got our hearts set on the Coleman Road Trip™, designed for tailgating at sports events but really ideal for our situation.
I found plenty for sale on eBay and Amazon, but pigheaded old me had to save a buck or two. I found one for sale on Craigslist for roughly the price of a new one ("gently used," the ad said. Hmmmph) except the guy was also offering the optional griddle and burner plates, which are around an extra $20 apiece. I thought this sounded like a mighty fine deal, and so did Tery. I contacted him, arranged a meeting place, and gave him cold, hard cash for it in a McDonald's parking lot (in a neighborhood where it could just as easily have been a drug deal and no one would have batted an eye). He started to show me quickly how to attach the propane regulator to the back but I waved him off, thinking it looked fairly self-explanatory. Besides, I'm ultra-intelligent, remember? How hard could it be?
Well. You can see where this is going. I got it home and discovered that it was nowhere close to self-explanatory. It had a metal sleeve you pulled back to open a pair of locking teeth, and presumably these clamped around the apparatus we could dimly see set back inside a hole on the back of the grill. It sort of clamped on, but one or two twists of it and it would fall off again, kind of making the presence of the elaborate sliding cuff rather mystifying. We devoted way too much time to trying to solve this puzzle on Sunday. I found the manual online (which only stated, "Push regulator in until you hear a click," most unhelpful) and e-mailed the seller, Derrick, and even left him a voicemail. We finally gave up, too weak from hunger to spend another second on it, and instead Tery made pan fried burgers (ugh. Can't tell you how disappointing this is after spending all day anticipating grilled meat).
I dragged Tery to a few hardware stores hoping for a solution, an adapter, a new part, anything. The closest we came was a hunting/camping store that sold the grill, but the newer version with the improved threaded, screw-on regulator that made infinitely more sense and which Tery spitefully unscrewed and screwed back on while counting to five, to illustrate just how much easier it was. Grrrr. I feel justified in that there is no mention of this design flaw anywhere online on any customer forums, so I don't see how I could possibly have anticipated this obstacle. I wanted to buy the newer version right there on the spot; yes, it was undoubtedly worth it to me to pay twice as much just to be free of this headache, but she insisted we wait and see if Coleman could sell us a part or something to make the old one work properly.
Monday morning I was awoken by Derrick returning my call, which helped convince me that he wasn't a scam artist. He admitted that it was a "royal pain in the ass" to get on, but we should definitely be able to tell when we had done it correctly. He even offered to maybe come over and do it for us, but I doubt he'd want to do this every year, or every time the thing happened to fall out again. Cue another half hour wasted on it before we decided to bring it with us to our friend's who invited us to dinner -- again, the logic being that he was a man and men are genetically predisposed towards having certain skills, like with grills and cars. He looked at it and we worked together to try to push it in, but again it would fall out far too easily for anyone's peace of mind. I waited for this morning, Tues, to call Coleman directly for advice. (As I patiently sat on hold for about 20 minutes, I whispered to Tery, "It's been a long weekend, fraught with grill difficulties.") All they could tell me was "Yeah, you have to push REALLY, REALLY hard to get it in" and no, they didn't sell an adapter, which seems incredibly stupid to me. They make their products to last practically forever, but if they become outdated they make you buy a whole new one. Highway robbery.
What pissed me off the most was that the issue was with such an important part. If it were, say, a faulty utensil rack or a problem with the accompanying stand we could work around it, but no, it had to be a crucial and potentially life-threatening element that we just couldn't mess around with or jury-rig (a common sight in both our Polish households growing up). GODDAMMIT.
Leaving us with these equally unpleasant options: 1) Keep fighting with the thing, stupidly hoping for the best, and still living on pan-cooked meals all summer (blech). I was also skeptical of this option because I didn't see how we could push any harder than we did with my and our friend's combined weight, for nothing. 2) Buy the shiny new one (yeah!), which then would leave us with these equally unpleasant options: a) throw away the old one (and, essentially, the money I spent on it) and just chalk it up to another hard- and expensively-learned lesson, or b) try to sell the old one on eBay.
Tery, our friends and my sister all unanimously and unhesitatingly proclaimed their support for the 2b option, sell it on eBay and sucker someone else in much the way that I had been. Personally this idea leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. How can I in good conscience sell this to someone else, knowing it has this (not inconsiderable) problem? I'm already haunted by nightmares of regret for things I've done that don't come close to being classified as this patently wrong. Sure, I could be fairly honest in the auction listing with a caveat emptor, but obviously if I were TOO honest that would seriously limit the chances that anyone would want it, making the attempt an utter waste of time. What to do? What to do?
You tell me.
[Poll #739085]
I make no promises that I will necessarily do what is most popular, because at the end of the day I'm the one who has to live with my actions. I just want to see if my LJ friends are every bit as amoral as my RL friends seem to be. Truthfully, I've already done #4 passive-aggressively. I e-mailed Derrick and explained that we just couldn't get the regulator attached, and that I had to buy a whole new grill and try to sell his on eBay, but thanking him for trying to help. Nothing hateful or threatening, just the artful application of a bit of guilt. No, Derrick, you don't get away scot-free here. You can ignore me, but can you ignore your conscience? Here's hoping the answer is no and he does the right thing all on his own.
ADDENDUM: Last night Tery grilled us some steaks on the new baby. It worked like a dream and they were goooooood. Mmmmmmmmmeat. BUT, she had to talk to the Alcoholic, admiring the pretty from her own balcony. Tery explained that we bought it so as to be legal. The Alcoholic responded, "Yeah, I'm thinking of getting a 10-pound tank for mine." I could be snarky, but I think the stupidity (or just plain cluelessness) speaks for itself here. And it goes without saying that she didn't even know such a thing as an exclusive hunting/camping store even existed (since she limits her shopping mostly to the neighborhood liquor stores).
Finally, so this isn't all gloom and negativity, photographic evidence of just HOW gay Xandir really is:
See? He HATES being on his back normally. But for Giddy, he'll lie down quicker than a $10 whore. For us? He's made it clear that, apart from our ability to fill bowls with food and water, he really could take or leave us.
See, about a year ago the city of Aurora banned the use of gas grills with propane tanks of a certain size on balconies. At first I cursed the inconvenience of no longer being able to use our Patio Caddy™, but on second thought living next to a meth lab for 2 years has certainly taught us a thing or two about blindly trusting that our neighbors share our safety standards. I wanted to get Tery a new smaller grill for her birthday, but since that isn't until July that would be half the summer gone with no grill, and that's simply unacceptable. Long story short(er), we got our hearts set on the Coleman Road Trip™, designed for tailgating at sports events but really ideal for our situation.
I found plenty for sale on eBay and Amazon, but pigheaded old me had to save a buck or two. I found one for sale on Craigslist for roughly the price of a new one ("gently used," the ad said. Hmmmph) except the guy was also offering the optional griddle and burner plates, which are around an extra $20 apiece. I thought this sounded like a mighty fine deal, and so did Tery. I contacted him, arranged a meeting place, and gave him cold, hard cash for it in a McDonald's parking lot (in a neighborhood where it could just as easily have been a drug deal and no one would have batted an eye). He started to show me quickly how to attach the propane regulator to the back but I waved him off, thinking it looked fairly self-explanatory. Besides, I'm ultra-intelligent, remember? How hard could it be?
Well. You can see where this is going. I got it home and discovered that it was nowhere close to self-explanatory. It had a metal sleeve you pulled back to open a pair of locking teeth, and presumably these clamped around the apparatus we could dimly see set back inside a hole on the back of the grill. It sort of clamped on, but one or two twists of it and it would fall off again, kind of making the presence of the elaborate sliding cuff rather mystifying. We devoted way too much time to trying to solve this puzzle on Sunday. I found the manual online (which only stated, "Push regulator in until you hear a click," most unhelpful) and e-mailed the seller, Derrick, and even left him a voicemail. We finally gave up, too weak from hunger to spend another second on it, and instead Tery made pan fried burgers (ugh. Can't tell you how disappointing this is after spending all day anticipating grilled meat).
I dragged Tery to a few hardware stores hoping for a solution, an adapter, a new part, anything. The closest we came was a hunting/camping store that sold the grill, but the newer version with the improved threaded, screw-on regulator that made infinitely more sense and which Tery spitefully unscrewed and screwed back on while counting to five, to illustrate just how much easier it was. Grrrr. I feel justified in that there is no mention of this design flaw anywhere online on any customer forums, so I don't see how I could possibly have anticipated this obstacle. I wanted to buy the newer version right there on the spot; yes, it was undoubtedly worth it to me to pay twice as much just to be free of this headache, but she insisted we wait and see if Coleman could sell us a part or something to make the old one work properly.
Monday morning I was awoken by Derrick returning my call, which helped convince me that he wasn't a scam artist. He admitted that it was a "royal pain in the ass" to get on, but we should definitely be able to tell when we had done it correctly. He even offered to maybe come over and do it for us, but I doubt he'd want to do this every year, or every time the thing happened to fall out again. Cue another half hour wasted on it before we decided to bring it with us to our friend's who invited us to dinner -- again, the logic being that he was a man and men are genetically predisposed towards having certain skills, like with grills and cars. He looked at it and we worked together to try to push it in, but again it would fall out far too easily for anyone's peace of mind. I waited for this morning, Tues, to call Coleman directly for advice. (As I patiently sat on hold for about 20 minutes, I whispered to Tery, "It's been a long weekend, fraught with grill difficulties.") All they could tell me was "Yeah, you have to push REALLY, REALLY hard to get it in" and no, they didn't sell an adapter, which seems incredibly stupid to me. They make their products to last practically forever, but if they become outdated they make you buy a whole new one. Highway robbery.
What pissed me off the most was that the issue was with such an important part. If it were, say, a faulty utensil rack or a problem with the accompanying stand we could work around it, but no, it had to be a crucial and potentially life-threatening element that we just couldn't mess around with or jury-rig (a common sight in both our Polish households growing up). GODDAMMIT.
Leaving us with these equally unpleasant options: 1) Keep fighting with the thing, stupidly hoping for the best, and still living on pan-cooked meals all summer (blech). I was also skeptical of this option because I didn't see how we could push any harder than we did with my and our friend's combined weight, for nothing. 2) Buy the shiny new one (yeah!), which then would leave us with these equally unpleasant options: a) throw away the old one (and, essentially, the money I spent on it) and just chalk it up to another hard- and expensively-learned lesson, or b) try to sell the old one on eBay.
Tery, our friends and my sister all unanimously and unhesitatingly proclaimed their support for the 2b option, sell it on eBay and sucker someone else in much the way that I had been. Personally this idea leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. How can I in good conscience sell this to someone else, knowing it has this (not inconsiderable) problem? I'm already haunted by nightmares of regret for things I've done that don't come close to being classified as this patently wrong. Sure, I could be fairly honest in the auction listing with a caveat emptor, but obviously if I were TOO honest that would seriously limit the chances that anyone would want it, making the attempt an utter waste of time. What to do? What to do?
You tell me.
[Poll #739085]
I make no promises that I will necessarily do what is most popular, because at the end of the day I'm the one who has to live with my actions. I just want to see if my LJ friends are every bit as amoral as my RL friends seem to be. Truthfully, I've already done #4 passive-aggressively. I e-mailed Derrick and explained that we just couldn't get the regulator attached, and that I had to buy a whole new grill and try to sell his on eBay, but thanking him for trying to help. Nothing hateful or threatening, just the artful application of a bit of guilt. No, Derrick, you don't get away scot-free here. You can ignore me, but can you ignore your conscience? Here's hoping the answer is no and he does the right thing all on his own.
ADDENDUM: Last night Tery grilled us some steaks on the new baby. It worked like a dream and they were goooooood. Mmmmmmmmmeat. BUT, she had to talk to the Alcoholic, admiring the pretty from her own balcony. Tery explained that we bought it so as to be legal. The Alcoholic responded, "Yeah, I'm thinking of getting a 10-pound tank for mine." I could be snarky, but I think the stupidity (or just plain cluelessness) speaks for itself here. And it goes without saying that she didn't even know such a thing as an exclusive hunting/camping store even existed (since she limits her shopping mostly to the neighborhood liquor stores).
Finally, so this isn't all gloom and negativity, photographic evidence of just HOW gay Xandir really is:
See? He HATES being on his back normally. But for Giddy, he'll lie down quicker than a $10 whore. For us? He's made it clear that, apart from our ability to fill bowls with food and water, he really could take or leave us.