“Where is the hidden camera?” 

The frequency with which I find myself looking around and wondering that cannot possibly be normal. 

It happens in moments when I just can’t believe that my Real Life could possibly be so ridiculous. 

So far, I’ve never found a camera, and I’ve lived to tell about all – and look back and laugh at most - of the random, crazy situations that have made me look for one.   

The past couple of weeks have felt that way.  I can’t explain why.  It’s still summertime.  We’ve done fun things.  On paper, it doesn’t seem like a time when my life should feel overloaded or out of control. 

But haven’t we learned by now?  Things are not always as they seem. 

For no single definable big reason, but for countless little ones, my life has just not felt like my own.  I can’t get traction on much of anything I want to do.  But the things I have to do?  Those just keep coming. 

While I am incredibly grateful to have a full life, it sometimes takes work to feel grateful when things beyond my control continuously keep me from other things that also really matter to me. 

Like writing.  I want to write every day, but even that has suffered over the past couple of weeks.  I don’t like that at all. 

We own a few small businesses.  In that area of my life, a generous portion of “extra” work - above and beyond my usual role - has demanded my attention lately. 

Having grown up in a family who also owned a small business, I’ve always understood the way of life that comes with it:  The different perspective it brings about so many things; the truth that there is no such thing as a day “off”; that problems do arise – usually at the very least convenient times, and that regardless of what else you might have happening, you have to find a way to solve them.    

Each week of the summer, our newest business hosts a popular outdoor catered event.  A favorite among much of our regular clientele, it also attracts new guests, therefore providing a valuable growth opportunity.  

If you have left your house recently, you’ve likely noticed as many “Help Wanted” signs as I have.  Businesses of all kinds, everywhere, share a common struggle in finding help lately.  Business owner, consumer, or simply general member of society - I think most of us have probably experienced the trickle-down effects of that struggle in one way or another. 

This past week, we experienced it in a new way as business owners. 

The catering team who has routinely served our events for more than a year called to regretfully cancel for the week, citing short staffing.  This news came on two-days’ notice.  Remember what I just said about problems arising at the very least convenient times?  Ironically, we had just, two-hours earlier, posted the event.  We already had reservations from thirteen guests. 

Not only do we hate to disappoint our clientele, but we also prefer not to miss out on the business that comes from this already seasonally limited opportunity.  As a rule of thumb in any business we own, my husband and I believe we should ideally be able to do anything we ask anyone else to do; so that if we need to step in, we can.   

We have discussed that before as it pertains to catering our business events.  I love to cook.  He loves to grill.  He makes such a great filet that our kids say he’s ruined eating out for them – because nobody else makes a steak as good as his. 

We have thrown, and I have cooked for, huge parties.  We planned and hosted our daughter’s wedding, and although a chef cooked for that, we did handle every other detail ourselves.  Cooking and events do not intimidate us.  So, at times when we’ve struggled to find the ideal fit for business catering, we have commented to each other,

“You know we could do it…”  But we never really wanted to. 

Cooking for and managing an event for which people actually pay money is something entirely different.  So, even in all our experience and relative confidence, we had never done that.  

Until this past week.

When we got the message letting us know we had lost our caterer, right after the “Well, NOW what??” moment, I off-handedly commented, “I guess WE will have to cook.” 

My husband said, “We really could…”

Then, like a snowball rolling downhill, the idea took off - and grew by the second. 

He and I make a pretty good team at times like this. 

(Keep that in mind, because we make a terrible, just about downright dysfunctional team at others, and I’ll tell you about that shortly!) 

Our first concern was ensuring that we, personally, hold the proper licensing to prepare and serve food.  He immediately began researching that, and over the course of the next two-days, got it all in order. 

We agreed on a menu. 

He selected several dozen beautiful, perfectly sized filets to grill. 

I spent those same two-days shopping for everything else - from ingredients to catering supplies.  Then I chopped, cooked, marinated, packaged, labeled, and prepared to transport. 

While the short notice certainly compounded the stressfulness of doing a thing like this for the first time, in hindsight, I also see it as a blessing in disguise.  The more time I spent overthinking every detail; all the ways we could blow it – the more apprehensive I became. 

Apparently, though, only I felt that way.  Any time I mentioned my waning lack of confidence, he said things like, “We can totally handle this.” 

He even said - more than once: “It’ll be fun.” 

Given my general mood thanks to a couple of weeks’ worth of unexpected obligations keeping me from the things I actually do consider “fun”?  Well, I just refrained from commenting on that part. 

As happens for me almost every time I plan and prepare for a big event, time seemed to pass in a blur. 

Then, just like that:  There we were. 

Go time.  Grill preheating.  Side dishes warming.  Tables set.  Guests arriving.  He still looked calm and like he found it all fun.  I felt more jittery by the moment. 

I asked, “What time should you put the first steaks on?” With our daughter working the front desk, he had a general idea of when the first group should finish with the activities, and therefore what time the crowd would begin heading our way.  That seemed like a plan that should work.

Until a group of five we had missed walked up to our tables and pleasantly asked, “Is dinner ready?” 

(Where did they come from??)

First curveball. 

(No, the steak is not even on the grill yet.) 

Rattled, but feigning confidence, we promised them, “Just a few minutes.” They graciously responded that they were enjoying the place and in no hurry. 

The first steaks hit the grill, and right about then, it happened:

Second curveball.  A BIG one. 

I should explain that when I say “grill”, I don’t mean a kettle of charcoal.  (Although, I promise, moments into our first catering experience?  I would have paid big money for one of those!) Nope.  I mean one of the all-the-rage, state-of-the-art grills that doubles as a smoker and an oven.  The kind that connects to an app on your phone that tells you the temperature and when to add wood. 

It does that, but we didn’t need an app to tell us the temperature.  Because right before our eyes, with the very first of thirty-some steaks on the grill for less than a minute, and with five gracious but hungry people waiting patiently, the on-unit display showed us the temperature.  Which suddenly, and for no apparent reason, began dropping.  Make that plummeting. 

We have the same grill at home.  We have used it, often daily, for nearly two-years.  We understand how it works.  Once or twice, we have had some sort of slightly similar experience with it, usually remedied by reigniting or adding wood.  Of course, in this particular situation, those things made not one bit of difference.  Set at 500 degrees, we watched in terror as the digital number dropped by the second.  When it dipped below 350, my panic noticeably increased.  Interestingly, his “fun” level suddenly appeared to decrease. 

(Charcoal never let us down – just saying…)

“What are we going to do??” I asked. 

More than once.  Only to be met by a blank stare combined with a slightly-annoyed looking, “Just let me think…” face. 

“We have to get another grill!” I implored. 

More than once.  Only to be met by an even more annoyed-looking face, featuring clenched teeth that seemed to communicate, “Just stop talking to me…”

Much later, I would receive feedback that it was less what I was trying to say, and more the level of panic with which I was saying it that had felt “unhelpful”.  Noted.  Now…  

But in that moment?  Well… I’ll just say that receiving that reaction just hit “a little differently” right then. 

I said I’d tell you when we make a “terrible, just about downright dysfunctional team”.  We have reached that point in the story:

In moments where, as a “team” we both feel helplessly stressed and under on-the-spot pressure – we kind of… implode.  We turn on each other and fight like third graders!  It’s happened before.  In a variety of circumstances.  In front of family and friends – many of whom, to this day, remember.  They still laugh at our tendency to go from zero to total, fighting disaster in the space of a heartbeat. 

We can add another person to our list of witnesses, because amid the fray, our business partner happened along and became aware of the dire nature of our dilemma.  After he suggested all the things we had already unsuccessfully tried, I began to speak again and met the same clenched jaw reaction from my husband. 

I looked at my car sitting right where I had unloaded it.  I clenched my own jaw and ground out, “I could just get in that car and go home…”

“Well, go!” he said.  Then he clenched harder and growled, “NEVER AGAIN.”

(Wait just a dang second:  Who thought this would be so much “fun”?   That wasn’t me, was it??  No.  It was not.)

“I AGREE!” I assured him, and – for good measure - topped it off with, “I felt that way before I ever left home!”

And THEN he said, “Well, then, you shouldn’t have come!”

I picture a prison searchlight when I imagine what my eyes did in that moment.  In one roving swipe, they took in everything I had done for the past two-days.  From the fresh salad to the sliced pies; from the butter and salad dressing I had individually portioned and packaged in cute little containers, to the cutlery sets and steak knives I’d hand-wrapped in napkins; all of it ready and waiting to go.  But I just “shouldn’t have come”? 

With undoubtedly more calm than I felt (because I felt zero calm!) I walked to my car, got in, backed out of my loading spot, shifted into drive, and I left!  

(I wanted to sling gravel.  But I didn’t.)

Have I mentioned that by now, rain had begun to pour?  It had.

I had merged onto the interstate before my fury began to clear enough for me to think about my daughter.  She works so hard on these busy nights.  I knew that my absence would create even more for her try to do. 

Five miles later, I pulled off the next exit ramp, stopped, and fired off a text saying, “I’m coming back.  But only for our daughter.”  I received a reply letting me know that, for reasons just as inexplicable as those that had made it stop, the grill had begun heating again. 

Upon my return, I saw that our partner had also come up with another solution.  One I had initially tried to suggest.  (Apparently his delivery had been calmer and more effective than mine.)  He called a neighbor and ran to borrow a large gas grill.   

Still not completely trusting the “fancy grill” my husband got to work preparing to fire that one up as backup. 

Next curveball! 

When he lifted the lid, approximately one hundred wasps, angrily evacuating the nest they’d built in the top corner, surprised us all!  Desperation, an extra set of metal tongs, high heat, and several heavy doses of grill cleaner later, we somehow lived through that - no worse for the wear. 

Most stories have a turning point, and I guess this is where we reached ours.

From that point on, both grills worked flawlessly.  The crowd drifted through in a totally manageable flow.  We could not have received nicer compliments on the food.  Our guests were, as always, such nice people.  Nobody but us, our daughter, our partner, (and one guest who admits to having seen me make my exit) ever had a clue about all that had gone wrong.

By the end of the evening, we did indeed laugh about it all. 

Our daughter eventually told us that, right in the middle of the worst of it, her husband had called and asked how things were going.  Her response?

“The grill won’t heat, and I’m pretty sure my parents are getting divorced!” 

We laugh now, but at the time I don’t think any of us would have argued with her synopsis. 

I have no idea why things went so wrong. 

It only happened two nights ago, so I haven’t had time to uncover any great “lesson” to share from it.  Maybe I never will. 

When it was over, our daughter told us multiple times, “I’m proud of you guys!”  That alone makes it feel worth it. 

The guest who admits to having seen my exit knew more than most about all that had gone wrong, beginning with the caterer’s cancellation. At the end of the evening, he paid us the most meaningful compliment:  He said that most people wouldn’t have made the effort that we did to make the night happen, when cancelling would have been so much easier.  I hope he knows how much that meant to us.

Apparently, several guests asked if we will come back and cook next week. 

As little as I know about why things happened the way they did, I know even less about what the future holds. 

We learned some things:  We should always have two grills - and we should probably try harder not to act like third graders.   

I learned that when someone promises me “fun”, I should definitely ask for specifics.   

We can laugh at ourselves, so I hope this has given you a chance to laugh, too.  

More importantly, I hope that in some way, it’s helped you – wherever you are today – to know the truth about where I have really been lately. 

Sometimes good.  Sometimes bad.  Sometimes downright dysfunctional:

That is what my Real Life looks like.