Uncle Sal's Winter Solstice Barbecue (Episode 11)

Uncle Sal speared a steak with his long barbecue fork and turned it over on the grill.

"Sal, why on earth ya gotta have a barbecue in winter?" asked his pinochle partner Joe. "Even my hair is freezing."

"Don't make no sense to have a barbecue like this if you're only gonna use it a few months outta the year. Yer gonna have something as fine as this here grill, ya gotta use it year-round. Besides, everyone's having a great time. Get yerself another hot toddy if yer cold."

"I notice it's too cold for you to wear one of your robes. Where did you find a periwinkle leisure suit?"

"Never you mind that. Help me marinate some of them steaks."

"I'll help you, Sal," came a voice from behind him. He turned to see Florine Saldivar bundled up in a big coat with a scarf, and a fleece hat that somehow managed to contain her voluminous brown hair.

"Oh. Hello, Florine. You don't really have to do that. Joe, he's a world class grillmaster."

She leaned close and kissed his cheek, then took the basting brush and went to work on some of the meat on the grill. "I know I don't have to do it. I want to." She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Sal and gave him the occasional lascivious leer as she tended the meat. "The hot toddies are just perfect for a night like this. I hardly feel cold at all. Of course, I know what would warm me up even more."

A cold wind gusted and blew the end of Florine's scarf onto the only part of the grill not covered with meat. Uncle Sal quickly grabbed the scarf from around her neck, threw it to the ground and doused it with some of the water he kept by the grill. She held the scarf up and looked at it as though it were her dog that had just been run over by a car. "My scarf!"

"Don't worry. It didn't get on any of the meat. And I put it out as quickly as I could."

"But...it's ruined. I can't fix this. It's..."

"Awww quit yer bellyachin'. You didn't get hurt. It's just a scarf. You know what they say, no use sighing over grilled silk."

This episode featured:
Cal E. Flower as Uncle Sal
Augustus Galvan as Joe
Jamie Jolly as Florine Saldivar
and
Jellybean Merengue as the barbecue fork

Tune in next week when Uncle Sal says, "Ninety percent of chess is half-mental."

[16 October 2007]