There’s this man who likes to grill his food. His wife, who doesn’t grill herself, enjoys his grilled food. She praises his ability to consistently grill the food to the perfect degree of doneness. The man has used the same grill for a few years and his wife thinks the old grill looks kind of ugly. She saw a grill in a store that looked nicer, so she asks him questions about how the old grill is doing. “Does it still work well?”, that sort of thing. The man says there are things that don’t work as well as they used to, but everything’s fine and to his liking.

She keeps working on the man over the next few months, shows him pictures of new grills and how shiny and pretty they look and asks him questions his grill and new grills. “Could you grill better on a new one”, that sort of thing. But no, he says, I like the grill I have. She takes him to a store that sells grills and asks him, “Wouldn’t you enjoy grilling more on this grill? It’s stainless steel and your old grill is rusty” But he says no, he’s happy with the old one.

Months go by and the wife keeps chipping away at her husband’s foolish resistance to her plan of replacing the old ugly grill with the shiny new one. She asks him to accompany her on some shopping errands and when they just happen to be standing in Home Depot in the Lawn and Garden department, she says, “Your birthday’s coming up next week. Let me buy you a new grill for your birthday!” Okay, the man says. He knows that it’s useless to keep resisting this plan his wife has for his grill. So for his birthday, they pick out a new grill and bring it home with them. He puts the grill box in his man cave.

His wife tells him, “I bought some food for you to grill tonight, maybe you could put the new grill together and use it to cook our supper tonight.” The man explains that it takes a few hours to assemble a grill and, since the old grill works perfectly well, he uses that to cook their food. A few days later, the woman asks the man, “When are you going to put the grill together? I bought it for your birthday. Don’t you like your birthday present?” The man explains that he’s been busy doing other things and that although he likes his birthday present very much, other things have taken priority. She reminds her husband that they have dinner company coming on the weekend. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have your birthday present set up and use that shiny new grill for our company?” she asks. The man says that it would be nice but that the old grill will make food just as tasty as the new grill, so if it happens that the new grill is not ready yet, the old grill will work just fine. “Will you at least start putting the new grill together before you go to bed tonight?” she asks. The man says yes, he can take some time tonight to at least start assembling the new grill.

The day before the company arrives, the woman asks the man how much progress he’s made on assembling the grill. The man replies that he’s put 2 hours into it and he figures he’s about half done. “Good,” she says, “that will give you plenty of time to finish before the company arrives”. The man says that he probably won’t because there was a storm recently and he has already promised her to clean all the windows, hose off the deck, trim the bushes, wipe down the outdoor tables and chairs, go grocery shopping, vacuum the floors and help prepare the meal.

As the guests are leaving, the woman tells her husband that she was disappointed that they didn’t get to grill their food on the new grill. “But didn’t we have a lovely time?” he asks. “The food was good, the wine was good, the company was good and everyone had a delightful time. I think we did a good job.” She agrees, but says “I just don’t feel like you appreciate me. I went out and got you a lovely grill and even spent extra money to get a nice one so you’d like it. You even helped pick it out. I got it for your birthday and then you act like you just don’t care what I do for you. I put a lot effort into this. The least you could do is to honor me by putting your birthday present together. Now I’m going to have to nag you to finish the assembly and I’ve got plenty to do myself. I don’t see why I should have to take on the role of managing your projects. I’ve got enough work of my own to do. You just don’t appreciate all the stress I have and then you make it worse by not honoring me. You don’t pay attention to me.”

The man drew his wife close to him and said, “I’m sorry baby. I love you. I should have some time to finish putting the grill tomorrow.” “But I wanted you to it you to have it ready for our company!” she said, “It would have been so nice to have the new grill for our company.” “I’m sorry baby. I’ll try to do better next time.”