So I haven't been actively trying to increase my collection much lately, but I still search on Craigslist every so often because, you know, Weberitis. I was in Maine for the weekend when I saw a post pop up.
Weber Jumbo Joe Grill
With pictures. A RED Joe!!! And it looked literally unused. 5 miles from my house. Which I was unfortunately 200 miles away from with spotty cell coverage.
It looked like it had been up only an hour, so I thought, what the heck. I shot off an email and kept hoping for a reply. Now, the only other Red Outrider I'd ever seen in my area was gone in SEVEN minutes, so I figured my odds weren't grate.
I don't hear anything, but I notice that the spotty cell service is playing heck with my phone and I decide to restart it. When it reboots it alerts me that my message was never sent and was stuck in my outbox. It was now 4-5 hours after posting and I was sure I was cooked, but I hit resend anyway.
5 minutes later, a text hit. "Hi, this is _______ with the craigslist grill. Can you get it tonight? I'm around."
ARRGGHHH!!! I wasn't going to be back until late morning. I asked if that worked and he said sure. I spent the rest of the night convinced I was going to get swiped by an internet bid to buy box and ship or at the least jack the price up on me. I was nervously refreshing both Craigs to see if the ad went down or the price went up, and the online finds section here dreading that I'd see it pop up. I think a bunch of people here know exactly the feeling I'm talking about (a mix of dread, excitement, fear, anticipation and about 17 others).
We hit the road this morning a touch earlier than expected so I told him my GPS ETA and asked for his exact address.
5 mins. No response. (every other text and email had yielded an insta-response)
10 mins. Nothing. (amplify the fear, anger from the feelings mix, cut out some of the excitement).
15 mins. "Sure. Address is ...."
!!!!!!!!
Now I just had to sweat out the next hour and a half, still refreshing Craigs and WKC (GF was driving).
One hour and forty minutes later, I had the first Red Smokey Joe Platinum I'd ever seen in my hands and a big old s'it-eating grin on my face!
It turned out it had been used (gently) and he'd just cleaned it well enough to do a grill fella proud. It had two spots of rim rash, and the vents are a touch loose. That's it. Every picture except for the one of the rim rash was in the ad.
I credit some grill karma for the score. Last week, I directed my buddy to a free WSM near him and then gave him a chimney, bag of charcoal, and bag of smoking wood. Saturday, I rebuilt my GF's father's Genesis and managed to make 4 racks of ribs on the C&B performer I donated a few summers back to the Maine house and fed the family and some neighbors. Yesterday, my GF's brother had to bolt to catch a ferry off the island we were all on in Maine and didn't have time to grab anything (he thought the ferry was 10 minutes later and if he missed it, the next one was five hours later and he'd miss his shift at work). I drove him to the ferry dock as fast as was humanly possible, got there as the ferry was pulling in, and then when he realized how cold it was I peeled the WKC sweatshirt off my back and gave it to him.
Thank you to anybody who saw it and DID NOT blow it up here or try to convince the seller to charge $500 for it!
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