Charcoal, Polio, Gasoline

Enoch. Peter Gamoian

There are thought processes that lead to brilliant, incredible, even monumental discoveries. There are also thought processes that—in a very logical and orderly manner—lead to acts of nearly unspeakable stupidity. I find both equally fascinating. Both are a series of intuitive leaps in logic and precise synaptic firing sequences. Yet one leads to a cure for polio. The other leads to spray-on hair.

Here’s a good personal example. Read carefully and see if you can spot the point at which I make an intuitive leap that goes off the rails.

Five years ago, I invited a new lady friend over for dinner (and nothing else). First time for dinner, and I was going to make a fine impression: steaks on the grill.

In the backyard, I painstakingly constructed a fine Golden Age at Giza briquette pyramid. I picked up the can of starter fluid to get the ceremonies underway; empty.

Frying or broiling steaks in the kitchen was out of the question. The whole point of the grill was to put my mastery of fire on display.

My thought process: Find a substitute charcoal starter and fashion an enthralling tale of conquest and ingenuity in the process.

Lighter fluid can’t be that complicated. There must be a similar substance sitting around the shed. Charcoal starter that has merely been packaged for another purpose.

Marketing.

I scanned the shed, and there, in a dark, dusty corner, sat the lawn mower, the weed whacker, and a bright red, half-full can of gasoline.

I gave the briquettes a proper soaking and fashioned a thin six-foot line of gasoline: a gasoline fuse, just like in the movies. As an additional precautionary measure, I put the lid back on the barbecue.

Safety first.

I knelt down at the end of my fuse and surveyed my work. Everything looked good. All systems go. I struck a match and slowly moved it toward the fuse.

When I regained consciousness, the grill and lid were in the middle of the lawn, some twenty feet away. Briquettes were scattered. There were several black dents in the stucco exterior of the house. One lone briquette sat in a clay flowerpot, sporting a merry little flame.

I regained my bearings and cleaned up the backyard as best I could. The grill and lid wouldn’t fit together.

Climbing the steps to the back door, an undamaged briquette fell out of my shirtsleeve. My once-white dress shirt was punctuated with black blotches, a pronounced tenderness behind each one.

I changed into a fresh shirt and dashed to the bathroom to wash my face. A look in the mirror revealed the absence of half of my mustache and the better part of an eyebrow. I shaved off the remainder of my mustache , and briefly considered shaving the surviving eyebrow to match.

Honesty is a sign of good character. I confessed. The more I explained, the harder she laughed. 

The following morning, strong blasts from the garden hose removed most of the black stains. The dents remained. After an hour of wrestling with the grill and lid, I gave up and threw the whole thing away.

You might assume I learned an important lesson.

I didn’t, because I have a history:

I repossessed cars in the middle of the night in the worst neighborhood in Fresno. Even the police wouldn’t go in there.

I got fired from a terrific midday adult contemporary radio gig by calling the Fresno mayor a hosebag.

On tour with a band, the bass player and I got wasted after a show and violated several outdoor vending machines at the Danville, IL, Ramada Inn. Desperately hung over, I woke up to see a shopping bag of potato chips, circus peanuts, and quarters.

With fellow musicians in a progressive rock band, we tried to capsize a 22-foot Catalina sailboat…during a regatta.

As rank amateurs, we went skiing, drank beer and Jack Daniel’s, got really high, and tried to go down a double-black-diamond slope.

In college, I treated my body like a seventh-grade science experiment. It was maddening to see news stories about a new designer drug epidemic showing up at almost all college campuses and not find a single one.

At Fresno State.

My dinner guest became my girlfriend, and then, four years ago, on Talk Like a Pirate Day, we  got married.

Thought process: Proposal:

Down on one knee? No thought process at all.

Propose in a stadium on live TV? Spray-on hair.

Blow yourself up? Epic.