Most of the time you would think of a grill having an uneventful life on someone’s deck. The grill is put together, placed on a table or deck and used. Nothing thrilling.

My grill led an eventful life. It started out normally (put together). After that, it wandered around the US for 9 months. Then, it was thrown into a dumpster by park personnel. The park personnel thought the grill was trailer trash. They were wrong. It was our favorite grill at the moment; it was also our only grill. The grill was removed from the dumpster, and then placed back into the dumpster. This was the eventful life of the grill we had for the last 2 years until a tragic dumpster event in August 2026.

As a result, we went almost 3 weeks without a grill. When we started searching for a replacement, almost all the stores were sold out. Menard’s had a grill that said compact and the legs folded in. The legs did fold in, if you removed the legs and put them back on the other side of the propane fed each time. (not going to happen :-))

We ended up ordering a CharGrill counter top grill that was almost identical to our prior 3 grills. The only difference was an ignition button. The new grill arrived at moms house in questionable condition. The side of the box was dinged up. Upon opening and inspection, one side of the grill had a small dent which did not impact the grills functionality.

The box contained numerous parts that needed to be put together and John was hungry. So, John was in charge of setup, and I was in charge of cooking.

I kept myself busy taking pictures and disrupting John’s train of thought while waiting to grill.

Finally the best part, grilled burgers. They were yummy.