Wanna buy a stove?

There was a wild, savage look in my eye as I stood in a pile of wrenches, screwdrivers and mysterious chunks of metal littering the garage floor like shards of my shattered Saturday.

I smiled.

I had met the foe and won.

It all began a couple of weeks earlier when my home had been selected as the site of a family barbecue. Normally I avoid these situations because I've learned that when you hold such events, you are sometimes expected to act as a host.

You may even be called upon to serve your guests.

I'm a much better guest than I am a host, but this time my family didn't buy the "old malaria's acting up again" story. I nevertheless insisted that they all bring something to the meal, preferably foldable, in the $20 to $50 denomination.

They didn't buy that one either.

I cleaned up the old propane flamer with a steel brush and a spray can of stove paint. It almost looked new. The only clue to its renovation was a big patch of black on the burgeoning grass where the wind had carried some over-spray. But I even had a story to cover that little foible.

Sure it didn't look like a scorch mark, but how many people have actually seen a UFO landing site?

Of course, because it was our first barbecue of the year, it rained. In a time-honored suburban tradition, I moved the barbecue to just outside the garage door, and my father, brother-in-law and I stood inside trying to avoid asphyxiation every time the wind wafted the fumes of cindering burgers our way.

We talked about the weather, the economy, the rising cost of holding a family barbecue, when suddenly my father mentioned something about flames shooting out from the underside of my gas grill.

"That's right," I continued. "While you may think that food, like the food everyone brought today, is the most expensive part of holding a barbecue, the cost of propane has . . . what'd you say Dad?"

"There's fire coming out from under it," he repeated, and then launched into a story about how some other family members had fire coming out from under their barbecue and how that eventually led to pillar of fire 30 feet high scorching the house and leaving one person with some pretty serious injuries.

"So it's not a good thing," I said.

Fortunately, my neighbor had just purchased a new barbecue and let me borrow it.

It's a monster. You could cook a whole cow on it.

I pushed the ignite button.

It fired up first time.

I was able to put the entire meal on the barbecue grill and cooked it perfectly in about 10 minutes.

I resolved to buy a new barbecue.

"Yeah, I got a really good deal, " said my neighbor the next day when I returned it. "And the best thing was that I paid an extra $20 and they put it together for me."

"Good idea, " I said. "My last barbecue took nearly a day to put together. I'll never ever, and I mean never, do that again.

The assembly instructions for my new barbecue seemed simple at first. The first five pages were dedicated to warnings about the horrors which await anyone foolish enough to ignore the warnings. The remaining seven pages outlined in detail the construction of the barbecue.

It was three p.m. Saturday when I started to put the pieces together in the garage. As I bent over to pick up a bag full of screws, I heard the sound of tearing cloth and felt a sudden, but not altogether unpleasant, draft. It wasn't the first time I've blown a pair of drawers, and if I keep at the pizza, it won't be the last. Still, it seemed ominous.

Despite the warning I continued.

"Attach caster legs to bottom pan as shown using 1 bolts, washers and nuts. Non-caster left leg (longer), insert (4) leg plugs and attach using 1 bolts, washers and nuts."

After the first hour, I had the legs together.

I had also managed to make the rip in my pants bigger, knock my thumb with a wrench and cut a trench in my hand on a sharp metal plate.

Despite the injuries, I pressed on.

"Install lower tank brackets and position tank as shown. Insert J-nut on upper bracket and locate into fuel gage. Secure over tank collar with thumb screw."

Thumb screw? Who designed this? The Grand Inquisitor?

I wrenched, bolted, hammered, cursed, pommeled, beat, cursed, bent, forced, cursed and struggled, until, finally, after five more hours, it was finished.

It was also night.

And there was nothing to barbecue.

For the past week, we've barbecued every day.

I think my neighbors believe that I've given up paying my hydro bill.

You know, that may be an idea