Best Cookout Never

The unofficial start of summer is here!

Luckily, I live in an area where summer-like temps start early and stretch well into September. So, Memorial Day really signals the start of daily requests to go to the neighborhood pool from Georgia Peach and my disgust for not being swimsuit ready.  

Memorial Day also triggers the memory of one particular barbecue.

Many years ago while living in Chicago, one of my besties…let’s call her Marketing Diva asked if I wanted to go with her to a barbecue hosted by one of her friends. Seeing that I loved a good cookout and I had hung out with said friend a time or two, sounded great to me.

Marketing Diva picked me up and we headed to the south suburbs. At the time, we both lived on the north side of Chicago so, we were looking at roughly an hour drive. No problem! This gave us some time to recap our previous night’s shenanigans.

The conversation usually started one of two ways, “Did I dream that we got kicked out of a rickshaw last night?” or “Wait, did you really give that guy your number?” And yes, we absolutely got kicked out of a rickshaw once.

Ahem, back to the barbecue…

We arrived at the house, pulled into the driveway and parked next to a work truck. Not thinking much of it, we gathered our treats, (baked beans, cupcakes and wine) and walked to the side door.

Our Hostess greeted us at the door and warmly welcomed us into the house. Chatting and walking, we followed her into the kitchen.

Correction…we followed her into a kitchen remodel!

All of the countertops had been ripped up, all major appliances relocated, and 4 guys prepared to install new GRANITE COUNTERTOPS!

 

 

MD (to the Hostess): I am so sorry we came! I must have missed your call or text that the barbecue was canceled. We will get out of your way.

Hostess: Girl, the party isn’t canceled! We decided to have our granite countertops installed today. You guys can hang out in the family room downstairs until we finish.

MD: Are you sure? It seems like a lot of work to be done still.

Hostess: They are almost ready to install them so the only thing left to do is to move the appliances back into place, put everything back on the countertops and start cooking. Please go downstairs, it won’t be long at all.

Did she just say that they were almost ready to install the countertops? And then start cooking? Why are we standing in the middle of a kitchen remodel when I should be sitting in front of a plate of barbecue by now? Are we getting punk’d? Ashton?

MD: If you are sure…we will hang out downstairs in the family room.

We headed downstairs only to be greeted by a room with no snacks. NO SNACKS. What kind of place is this? I silently questioned if the Hostess actually considered MD to be a friend. 

I decided to break out my ‘I have been stuck on the train too many times not to be prepared’ emergency snack pack. I shared it with MD because this is how you treat a friend.  🙂

Obviously, we talked at length about the situation. Who plans to have people over AND renovations done on their house on the same day? Even I knew that was a bad idea (and at this point in my life, I was dating a bad idea and pretty much an expert).

But we drove an hour to get there, so we decided to stay. It should not come as a surprise that this experience did not end well for us. 

After what felt like forever and a few other guests with kids joined us in the now foodless basement Chuck E. Cheese, we decided to leave. We hadn’t seen or heard from our hostess since our relocation to the family room and we were pretty annoyed at this point. 

We headed upstairs and found…

• A bunch of people hanging out having a good time. Clearly, the basement was soundproof or more likely we couldn’t hear anything other than the playdate happening around us.
• Evidence that there was food but, nothing of substance left for us to consume. NOTHING.
• Our cupcakes and baked beans untouched on a random table. Yes, we took them with us.
• The Hostess having a great time with her real friends and surprised we were leaving so soon. Really?
• A finished kitchen. And lastly…
• Our way to the door. 🙂

 

Luckily, the summer ended better than it started.