Last night, we told Sean to grill the chicken breasts.
Sean grabbed his jacket and headphones and put the chicken on the grill. Josh and I were entertaining Maura, who was asking for tickles. It was just a normal evening.
Several minutes later, Sean steps in through the back door. “Well, the grill caught fire again.” he stated calmly.
Sean has always been our chill kid. He was the newborn that’d sleep for five hours, the two year old who never gave us a hard time, and now the teen who doesn’t get overly-excited. He also likes to deadpan things. Which is why, looking at his calm expression and delivery of the words “grill on fire”, we didn’t move.
Then Sean glanced back outside.
“Is it STILL on fire Sean?” Josh asked.
“Yeah.”
Of course, the three of us rushing to the back door (me not wanting to ask just how on fire was the grill, was it just the grill, was it the deck as well?) meant that obviously, Maura should follow the excitement.
Maura was not happy when I grabbed her and gave her the “You can’t go outside, it’s not safe.” speech. Josh and Sean salvaged the chicken, put out the grill fire (which was minor compared to the Towering Inferno that I created in my mind), and no decks or teens were harmed in the process.
Afterwards, we gave Sean a handy tip. “When telling us something’s on fire…maybe…just maybe…seem a bit more concerned about it.” I said.
Meanwhile, maybe we should suggest jobs like air traffic controller and bomb squad to Sean, since the dude is unflappable.
