My barbecue is bigger than yours

Don't forget: size matters this Father's Day

As any modern guy of my gender can tell you, some things are just wrong.

Take a news release that popped into my email's inbox the other day, for example. It was sent by some group called Gal-Friday Publicity and sported the following headline: "This Father's Day -- Don't BBQ -- EBQ! How thinking in an Ecological way can be the best gift."

It stated recycling-minded young people can delight dad on Father's Day -- and help the planet at the same time -- by giving him a gift that's taking the Internet by storm: An itsy-bitsy barbecue dubbed the EBQ, which is made from an old Altoids or M&M's tin, some sheet metal screws and a couple of computer fan guards.

It's a teeny-tiny, do-it-yourself grill that is fuelled by a single charcoal briquette and has barely enough room to cook one scrawny hotdog or one quarter-sized burger.

Is that an awesome gift for dad, or what? Well, the answer depends on your current gender. This is because microscopic barbecues are one of those hot-button issues that divide readers along gender lines as follows:

Typical female response: "Awwww!"

Typical male response: "Are you (bad word) kidding me?"

The point I'm trying to make is that, for guys, size definitely matters. Since caveman days, we guys have attached a great deal of importance to the size of our stuff. It's how we set ourselves apart from other guys; it's what helps us figure out where we stand in the pecking order. Along with watching professional sports, our DNA compels us to size up another guy's stuff and, as a humanitarian gesture, inform him: "Mine is bigger than yours!"

Take my neighborhood, for example. If my neighbour, Mark, upsets the delicate balance of power by buying a hulking new set of power tools, I will be threatened and race out and buy a massive ride-on lawnmower, thereby forcing Mark to regain tactical neighbourhood superiority via purchasing oversized top-of-the-line golf clubs.

From a scientific perspective, if you were to spend time observing any random group of guys, regardless of whether they are human guys or chimpanzee guys, in their natural environment, such as a sports bar or a den, the leader, without fail, would always be the guy with the biggest TV.

That said, barbecues are another key yardstick for measuring manliness, so if you were to give dad a cute little miniature grill made out of a candy tin, he'd find himself in an awkward situation in his neighbourhood.

Your dad: "Want to see my new barbecue?"

Your dad's neighbour: "Sure, where is it?"

Your dad (sighing): "It's in my pocket."

Your dad's neighbour: "You sicken me!!!!"

I don't wish to seem insensitive, but if you're going to threaten dad's standing among his peers by downsizing his grill, you should help him deal with the pain by handing him another product I've seen on the Internet -- "Viagra-laced virility beer," which was brewed up in Britain to celebrate the Royal wedding and contains a mixture of natural aphrodisiacs.

Fortunately, not everyone is willing to sit quietly while the fragile male psyche is shattered by a dangerous eco-trend towards shrinking sacred objects. I am referring here to a man I have just read about, a man who looked himself in the mirror and asked a question men have asked since the dawn of time: "Can I build a barbecue big enough to cook seven whole lambs, three pigs, two cows, 1,000 sausages, or 500 hamburgers at the same time?"

For British engineer Jack Henriques, 31, the answer was "yes!" Jack spent three months welding steel to create "God-grilla," the world's biggest barbecue, a two-ton grilling behemoth that is 16 feet long, 11 feet tall and requires 14 bags of charcoal to ignite.

"It does get extremely hot and you often have to cover your face because you are standing just a few feet away from a big wall of flame which can cook a cow," Jack is proudly quoted as saying.

When I read about Jack's gargantuan grill and saw photos of him cooking several regulation-size cows, I have to admit that, as a Canadian guy, I felt a rush of gratitude over the simple fact that Jack is NOT my next-door neighbour.

And if anyone needs me on Father's Day, I'll be in the backyard, wearing my "Kiss the Cook" apron, a non-Viagra beer in one hand, a fork the size of a harpoon in the other, at the controls of my beloved propane barbecue.

Which, if you must know, is much bigger than yours.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca