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I fixed something.

Those of you who know me know that my abilities are severely limited when it comes to fixing stuff. If it can't be fixed by squirting WD-40 on it, well, I'm stumped.

Yesterday I actually fixed something without going through my regular routine. Normally, I'll squirt some WD-40 on the broken item, which obviously never fixes anything. Then I'll stomp around for a bit, until Mrs. Smoot either fixes whatever it is by herself, or she caves in and lets me purchase a new one.

This time, it was our barbecue grill that was acting up. A week or so ago, we noticed that when you turn two of the three burners on, flames would eventually start shooting out of the front of it. Using my amazing manly abilities, I determined that this was probably an undesirable feature of the grill, especially if we prefer not to have our shirts catching on fire while we're making burgers and such.

Before I took the drastic step of spraying it with WD-40, I conducted my other manly experiment where I ignored the problem for several days in hopes that it would resolve itself. Alas, it did not.

So today I did some manly work on it, requiring the use of an actual Phillips head screwdriver and everything. I yanked a bunch of parts out of the grill, and actually found the problem. Some idiot insect apparently decided to build a tiny condominium unit inside two of the thing-a-majiggers (sorry for the technical terminology) where the propane is supposed to flow. It was apparently blocking those passages, and causing the flames to shoot out of the front.

I took the thing-a-majiggers apart, as well as several doohickies, hoosemfoosits and whatchamacallems, and I cleaned them all up. Imagine my shock when I put everything back together (without any leftover, random parts, either!) and the grill actually worked.

I think I'll probably miss having those flames shooting out, though. They were kinda cool.