The guests didn't show up.

[Lightning]

Thanks everybody for the kind words. As much as the neighbours enjoyed the cookies and the one friend enjoyed his rack of ribs, the circumstances hurt and it was a shame to break up what I hoped would be a nice meal and spend the evening by myself out in the back yard by the fire wondering what gives.

It's happened to me too.  Sometimes they don't have the courtesy of calling.  That never happened when I was growing up.  The newer generation missed some lessons in manners and edicate.  Great looking ribs!  Their loss.

The writing went on the wall when the excuses stopped coming in by text message after I said I could let the smoker run slow and long and give them extra time to get here before the food was ready.  I would rather have been told directly, "We aren't coming", than have a bunch of softball excuses followed by radio silence. The other half of the problem is that when people do this sort of thing, they set an example for others, especially their own children, and it perpetuates the problem. This couple complains about their 17 year old's behaviour quite often, but where's he getting the example that he emulates from?

The ribs looks worthy. Like HFG I would have eaten my share. A little or a lotta tug or fall of the bone...I care not really.

Hey Lightning. That sucks man. Some people have no idea how much effort goes into a cook like that...some do and don't care. I once had a friend and his wife come over for a smoked prime rib dinner only to have them poke me for having as many Webers as I do.....repeatedly....even when the smoke started pouring out my ears.

I am down the road in London. You ever need someone to appreciate the effort just drop me a line. I got me some Webers too.

Prime rib is a rare treat indeed.  I've only ever made it once on the grill. I haven't tried smoking it. If I see them on sale again, I'll have to try that.  I can't believe your guests were poking fun at you about anything when they were over for a prime rib dinner, much less the equipment used to cook it.

Some people...some people...

On the bright side, I did have a couple,of friends over last night and we had home made hamburgers and ate them around the fire pit and looked up at the stars since it was a beautiful, cool, clear crisp evening until the clouds rolled in around 11:30.  At some point, someone looked at the weather report and saw a current temperature of 0 degrees (32 F) and we couldn't believe it. That's probably a temperature taken out by the airport and it was probably a little bit warmer where we were, but we weren't feeling it inside the radius of warmth the fire pit was making until it burnt out and the two friends left.  But that was a nice evening.