The Grill & The Magic of WD40.

We recently moved to a new condo (literally right across the parking lot from our old place), but as short a distance as it was it was like moving into a different world.

3 floors. Everyone gets a room. Riverfront complete with a small waterfall. Two decks, one up and one down and all right there on the river. Windows everywhere to soak in the view, sound, and breeze of the river. I finally got some outdoor living back and oh my God how I missed it.

So it was a week of packing, moving, unpacking, cleaning and we took advantage of the deck by eating dinner on it nightly. But there's something amiss when you're sitting on the deck eating take-out pizza. Sure you get the whole great outdoors thing going, but the missing element was clearly the grill.

So Monday night I finally get to the point where I'm going to fire up the charcoal and grill a couple of hamburgers. After I wheel the grill in from the garage (only to have the wheel and lid fall off three times because of a loose nut) I get the thing settled on the deck right next to the patio furniture.

Now we're talking.

That was until I realized that while I had plenty of charcoal, I had precious little lighter fluid to get the party started. I tried everything. Wadded paper. Cardboard. Paper towel soaked in cooking oil (just like the environmentally friendly bag of charcoal told me to do). Nothing.

Well I shouldn't say nothing, because I had plenty of smoke. I even went so far as to pour a 1/4 cup of rum on some of the coals to no avail. Oh, and we won't be doing that again because that's just an abuse of rum.

The hour was getting late and my wife was taking a great amount of perverse enjoyment from this. Then it hit me, what if I shot a little WD40 on a paper towel and built a little charcoal pyramid around it would that work?

Your DAMN right it would.

Two quick squirts, a little charcoal and P-O-O-F we got fire.

And damn those burgers were good. I don't know what it is about an outdoor grill but wholly cow it was like heaven on a bun.