Grill Narrative

Take a deep breath in. All of the typical summer barbecue smells are present: burgers and hot dogs on the grill, chips and dip, watermelon, and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The summer’s latest and hottest music can be heard throughout the house and into the backyard. There is a small screened in gazebo in the yard. That’s where everyone will be sitting, but Bri and I are in the kitchen cooking.

We started by forming the patties and setting out the hot dogs. As this was a couple years ago, we weren't allowed to be in charge of the grill. However, Jenny deemed us old enough to cut all the fruit and vegetables for the day.

We divided up the food, each grabbed a knife, and went to work. I was at the prime age of thirteen and believe it or not I had never cut food before. I knew Bri had and I didn't want to sound lame so I just pretended

like I knew what I was doing. I was putting the expression “fake it until you make it” to the test.
I finally got the hang of what was happening and how to cut things somewhat evenly when we heard it.There were people arriving for the barbecue. Bri rushed back to see who it was. She saw that it was friend of her brother’s so she ran back in to inform her brother of this person’s arrival. As she is running back through the kitchen, her socks slid one they hit the tile. BAM! She falls down. I begin laughing so hard I’m crying because she fell again trying to get back up. However, now she’s not the only one in pain.
I was still working on cutting up tomatoes when she came running in. My hand slipped when I began to laugh and I sliced my hand. I still have a scar on the outer edge of my left hand.
Finally, this friend walks in. Bri had just stood back up so he didn’t see her on the floor. He did see my hand bleeding, however. The awkward laughter is dying off so the room feels a little odd as he walks through. He continues on his merry little way though.
Bri notices I am bleeding and starts to crack jokes. Her house is a block from the hospital so all the jokes revolved around that. Jokingly asking if I’m going to bleed out on my way to the hospital. No, the cut on my hand wasn’t bad enough to need the hospital, but like I said, it did scar.
All I had to do was get Bri to help put a band-aid on it and continue on with the food preparation. It is known that someone is truly friends with someone else when they both are capable of laughing it off when one of them messes up, but can also help them out in the process.
We finished cutting up all the fruit and vegetables and began to start the festivities. THey had a basketball hoop so we started with a game. Her brother’s team won, but we all had fun. Then the party moved on to the back of the house.
Jenny was finishing up on the grill, so we all go some drinks before we ate.

Some jokes were made about my horrible job at slicing the tomatoes. Honestly, they were not my best work. Everyone finished eating and Bri and I headed on inside. The guys stayed outside on the hunt for small sticks while we got a lighter. We were going to make a small fire in their fire pit.

After several attempts at lighting the fire, it finally took. We all grabbed a poker and a marshmallow. It was s’mores time. I caught my marshmallow on fire because that is how I like them. Once it was smashed between two graham crackers with a piece of chocolate, it was ready to be consumed.

We started experimenting with the s’mores. We would use cookies as the graham crackers. We would substitute the chocolate piece with a small piece of candy or even several pieces of candy.We would change the way we cooked the marshmallow. Some would hold it close to the fire but not quite in it to just warm it. Others would just catch it on fire. There was also an in between where it was almost a perfect golden brown. No matter what you changed, it still tasted like

heaven.
The night was coming to a close. The fire started to die down with the excitement of the night. The conversation stopped as we all looked up at the sky. Many constellations were out on this beautiful night. One by one people began to leave, but this friendship has never left me.