Tonight, a grill had to die.

Well, I guess it didn't HAVE to die. But nonetheless, I destroyed it with the weight of 12 bricks and my stupid, stupid stupidity.

See, the littlest dog I have has an amazing ability to dig holes under fences and squeeze her tiny self under. One morning, I woke up and SHE WAS GONE.

After I freaked out and papered the neighborhood with ugly yellow signs, a man called me. She was apparently having a good time helping him put down some paving stones in his back yard. I was so glad to see her, I cried. I told her then to always stay with the pack, and she has. Still, I feared losing her, so I went and got a bunch of bricks.

Bricks are heavy and scratchy. I had about 75 of them, over 2 trips. I could only take about 4 at a time. More were too heavy, because I had to carry them from the front of the house all the way around to the back, and I did not want to drop any of them on any metatarsals or the like.

On the 2nd carload, I got frustrated. I don't own a wheelbarrow or a dolly or anything that could logically be used to carry the bricks in greater quantities. Thinking I was being creative, I seized upon the only item in sight with wheels and a bowllike structure: the portable $20 grill that I had purchased last year and allowed to rust out considerably!!!

Carting it around to the front, I put in 8 bricks, more or less carefully. Then I added 4 more. I tilted the grill up onto the wheels. It began to lurch away from my hand. I jerked it upright. It grew heavier. The rickety frame, now bent from its bolts, lost shape and sagged towards the concrete like a drunken sailor. "Oh, well that's not working very well," I said aloud, by way of explanation to the 5 or 7 people who passed me by on their evening walks.

Angered and embarrassed by the grill's collapse and my lack of any forethought as to how this would actually work, I yanked up on the handle in an effort to just haul the entire bowlful of bricks around to the back. CRASH! It hit the concrete again, the plastic handle snapping in twain. "Well, that's REALLY not working very well, is it?" I said, more angrily this time. I removed the bricks, tiny load by tiny load, from the shambles that was once a grill, then I took that crumpled hunk of black-enameled metal and shiny silver legs around the back and, just like I did with J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, chunked it right across the yard.

My dogs are safe now, and I think that's worth more than the life of a rusty charcoal cooker.

The way I reckon it, I'm an artist, not an engineer.

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I can see what you mean. It just takes me a little longer.

-- Lee, Lifeson, Peart: Rush