Man vs. Charcoal

Yesterday, I celebrated one of man's best traditions: Tailgating. While there are girls out there that enjoy tailgating, I feel it's truly a manly tradition. Drinking, eating, watching football... It epitomizes being a man. That's why it hurts to admit that I (along with a lot of other 20-somethings) am not as manly as I should be.

The reason behind this thinking is simple. ANYBODY can tailgate. It doesn't take any skills to eat or drink or sit on your ass and watch a football game. But, when it comes time to lighting a charcoal grill, and actually setting up a "manly" tailgate, it doesn't take a lot of things to go wrong before you're left with cold charcoal and uncooked hamburger meat.

I drove down early Sunday morning with a buddy to get the day going. We packed up the car with (what I thought) were the essentials: burgers, chicken, beer, grill, bag of charcoal, condiments, tequila. What we forgot: plates, forks, spatulas/grilling equipment, common sense.

I have attempted to light three charcoal grills in my life. One time was successful with a self-lighting bag, one time was semi-successful that included a hint of lighter fluid with every bite of burger, and yesterday was just completely unsuccessful.

After about 20 minutes, a half bottle of lighter fluid and a Sunday edition of a shredded Daily News, all I had to show for my efforts was flaming debris that was flying over the parking lot and cold charcoal. You'd be surprised how un-manly it feels to be defeated by a grill. Luckily, we had another friend who met us there with a gas grill, but still....I felt pretty empty inside as we had to treck 3 miles to the other side of the stadium (lugging all our tailgating gear).

To solve this problem, I plan on doing what every self-respecting man does...Go buy a really nice gas grill for tailgating.

-Diddy