At school I learnt the historically dubious claim that during the reign of King Alfred, an Englishman could leave gold jewelry hanging from a tree branch and come back to find it untouched one year later. In Barack Obama’s America, I have discovered, you can do the same with a George Foreman grill leant against the front bumper of a Volkswagen Jetta. Maybe not for a year, but at least for one night.Last night just after midnight I was emptying kitchen waste into my prized compost bin when I noticed a large cardboard package propped up against the front of our car, parked on the street. It was a windy night, so I assumed the package had been blown out of someone’s recycling bin. The next morning it was still there when I went out to get the papers, but I was too idle to deal with it as I was still dealing with the effects of several glasses of Rioja.
Just after 11am, a visiting friend brought the box inside. It wasn’t empty at all. It contained a spanking new George Foreman grill. “The lean mean fat reducing grilling machine,” it says on the box, without pausing for any commas at all. The neighbours claim to know nothing about it. Two sets of friends who visited on Saturday night said they hadn’t seen it when they left, and are clueless about how it came to be in the street in front of our house. Though one did say, “It happened to us once with an armchair. We kept it for 30 years.”
We are mulling all possible explanations. In Obama’s America, everyone gets free gifts. The CIA has planted a bug in the grill and wants to eavesdrop on me chopping onions, swearing at the radio and singing along to Her Space Holiday. God is in fact a divine hamburger and is rewarding his chosen meat-eating disciples with a heaven-sent culinary aid. The George Foreman grill is so crap that you can only give it away. It’s some kind of threat, but our enemies couldn’t find a horse’s head so they left the next thing they could get their hands on, the message being that if we don’t tread carefully, we could end up with our heads sandwiched inside a George Foreman grill. Or something.
I did a google news search to see if there were any other reports of mysterious George Foreman grill appearances or apparitions, but all I could find was actress Blake Lively telling W Magazine last week that, “I just made chicken breasts from Whole Foods on a George Foreman Grill, with asparagus and broccoli.” W Magazine is the publication for lame-duck presidents, by lame-duck presidents, I believe. If anyone can see a sinister connection in all this, please let me know.
5 comments:
I was still dealing with the effects of several glasses of Rioja.
We all come to this. Once I could consume an entire pitcher of Montezuma's Curse, wake up on a kitchen floor surrounded by wailing children and still make it to work with a cheery grin, despite smelling like a wolf. Now a couple of pints of Champion's Speckled Johnson has me singing along to The Waterboys like a wedding dad.
My parents have a Forman, and do use it. Mind you, they also use a pressure cooker, a Teasmade and a shovel, so they may just jave some ironic thing going on that passed me by.
Perhaps you were visited by the middle class/aged equivalent of the fairy who dispersed bits of porn magazines under the rural bushes of my youth.
W Magazine sounds excellent. In past issues "Mr Herbert Hoover Commends Grapeshot and Indigence to The Nation", "Carter: Ok, Ok, But How am I Worse Than Him?", "W: Meet Jeb, Suckers".
Hey, I use a pressure cooker when I make soup.
So, Indie Pop, have you used the thing to good effect? Would you recommend it?
I was tempted, but then one of the neighbours claimed it after all - turned out someone had broken into her car, stole the GPS system and a roll of quarters, and then obviously decided that it wasn't worth fencing the lean mean grilling machine so they dumped it on the kerb. If she passes it on to forensics, my dabs are all over it. But as it took her two days to notice someone had done her car over, I'm confident she won't get around to that.
Boyo Of Little Use, my absorbent capacities have declined in a similar way. Next time we meet in that London for a pint, it will probably be just that - a pint, and not even a pint of neat slivovitz. We'll both be sloping off early - you looking ahead to your pipe and slippers and snuggling up in front of a log fire with Mrs Boyo, me to avoid getting my round in.
True. My odd night out with the Reading Welsh leaves me reeling, whereas a few years ago it would have counted as breakfast. I look forward to supping ale with you dahn ahld Lahndahn tahn while Mrs Boyo gathers in the kindling.
You can get a toaster that poaches eggs as well. Seriously, man. A toaster. That also poaches eggs. That, there, is the pinnacle of human achievement. There's nowhere left to go.
Maybe if I buy a car, someone will leave one propped against it for me?
I though Kelly had got me one for Christmas. It was a big, heavy box, and she said she'd had to carry it all the way home from Oxford street. It turned out to be an XBOX360. I did a decent job of pretending to look happy, before slouching off to the kitchen to make some eggless toast.
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