Ok, technically, this isn't really about San Antonio food/arts/travel (although it does involve a barbeque grill). But I hope you'll enjoy a fun story about friends, misdirection, and surreptitious deliveries.
Bruce has been making noise for months now about needing a new grill. Note the very correct use of the word "need" rather than "want." The trusty old grill had served well for 12 years, but was beginning to get a little, well, rusty, in a very literal sense. Burning down the house when the bottom gave out is not how I want to accomplish "a memorable meal."
He expressed a desire for a dual gas/charcoal grill, and I burned a lot of gas running hither and yon trying to find such a thing. (He really wanted a smoker too, but I gave up on a three-fer pretty quickly.) Finally located a suitable model at both Alon Market and Lowe's.
Next step....I needed to have him remove two of my minivan seats. (Two asides here. One: yes we have a truck. But I loathe driving it; the game would have been up in a flash if I'd asked to use it for any reason. Two: as it turned out, I should have had him remove all four seats. There is a reason I never pack the car when we go on vacation. My spatial skills, to his enormous irritation, are completely nil. More on this later.) This one was easy. I simply told him I needed to make a "client stuff delivery" on Friday. While technically true, I really didn't need the entire back of the van. But he didn't know that.
Next....I needed to get him out of the house on some reasonable pretext that wouldn't arouse his suspicions. I enlisted the aid of friends Karen and Kyle, and we quickly settled on Kyle asking Bruce to go see a movie, something they often do. He called on Friday and gave Bruce some cockamamey story about Karen kicking him out during housework (or maybe not so cockamamey, I don't know), and the date was set.
Next...enlist aid of friend to go pick up grill and get it to house. I picked up Tom just after Bruce left, and we headed for Alon. It quickly became apparent to Tom, Dave the drugstore manager, and the bagger that this crazy woman had no idea what she was doing. There was no way that grill was going into that space. I was contemplating options (such as running home and taking out the other two seats, and going up to the Palladium to switch the van with the truck), when Tom saved the day. They tilted the grill sideways and managed to cram it into the back of the van. It stuck out the back a bit. Helpful Dave comped out a skein of nylon rope and helped Tom tie down the liftgate. And we were off!
Bless him, Tom managed to get the grill out of the back of the van pretty much solo, as it was way too heavy for me. Once out, he rolled it into the backyard and onto the deck. Took the old grill off and rolled it to the side of the house, where Bruce was unlikely to find it. We covered the new grill with the old blue tarp, making it look like a "grill under tarp" just like the old one. From inside the house, Bruce wouldn't notice anything different. And I thought it unlikely that he'd go outside on Saturday afternoon. Got everything put back normally on the deck, and a very grateful Laura dropped Tom at home.
I actually managed to surprise him! I woke up early on Sunday, as he was getting ready to leave for church. I had to tell him before church, as there were way too many people there with beans to spill. He was totallly confused about why I was getting up and dressed. He followed me out to the deck, and as soon as he stepped out there, he could tell the grill was different. He was totally surprised!
As it turns out, we discovered that the grill has an attachment that adds a side smoke box, so I found him a three-fer after all!
It's always nice when one can surprise one's spouse of 27 years. And the entire episode simply confirms that I have no business figuring out if my van is big enough to carry something home.
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