License to Grill

So one of the main reasons I chose my apartment in Boston was a sentence in the advertisement on Craig's List which said, "balcony, ideal for grilling." I bought a brand-new Weber grill and had already fired up the BBQ pit twice this month. On Friday night, I had my friends Tom, Lisa, and Heidi (friends from medical school now living in Boston) come over for some Nate-style BBQ'ed burgers and brats.

Just as the coals were hot enough to start grilling, we started hearing some sirens. Lots of sirens. Then a few minutes later, some fire trucks made an appearance in front of our apartment. "Uh, Nate, I think they might be here for us," said Tom from the living room. Not long after there were six strapping firemen in our living room, fully equipped with their huge axes and fire extinguishers.

It turns out that, despite my landlord's ad on Craig's List and despite the fact that nearly every other balcony in the apartment is equipped with a similar grill which I doubt is merely decorative, it's apparently illegal to grill within Boston city limits. Bummer. So the evening finished with some depressingly cooked-in-the-pan meat. Oh well. Amazingly, Sophie slept through the entire shenanigans.