Manly Men Cook for the Show, Not the Meal
By Lon Walters (an excerpt from Mr. Walter's regular column)

Manly Blender
About six months ago, I got a hair to purchase the most frivolous piece of impulse gear since my parched Chia Pet.  I found this new treasure at a car show last year where it attracted hoards of wide-eyed guys to the booth.  It was loud, shiny and "really cool" - a gas powered blender.  If you have to ask why, you wouldn't understand.

It wasn't cheap but it came with this nifty black carrying case.  The most remarkable thing about justifying the purchase was its purpose.

Promoted as a potential pancake mixer and including numerous griddle Recipes, I don't believe any soul who lustfully cherished this spinning machinery believed it good for anything other than for the most celebrated margaritas in the universe.

Your fortune and fame with the best of comrades sometimes comes in small packages.  This one weighed 10 pounds, a bit bigger than toolbox, and was called a TailGator®.

My grand opening for this pearl was a farewell party for very dear friends.  What an opportunity to see what they were going to be missing settled in overcast, wet, too far to be fun - Oregon.

There was little doubt this device could possible have hit the liberal shored of the Northwest with the same passion.  Strutting around, waiting for an appropriate moment to unveil the most magnificently unproductive tool of the year, I would unleash a crowning achievement of guy-things everywhere.

Ear plugs were an absolute necessity.  Ohhs and ahhs of the astonished assembly would be ever so distracting for a maiden voyage.

Its green, weed whacker engine case gleamed in the setting sun.  The new, clear, plastic mixing container was ready to accept a river of pre-mixed margaritas and was cavernous enough to swallow scoop after scoop of crushed ice. 

The primer button approved my steady hand, and the starter cord anxiously trembled for its turn.  The 24-cubic centimeter, 2.5-horsepower engine howled to life, and the crowd was motionless, with eyes fixed to the magical gadget. 

What we didn't count on was a rotating blade with the force of a typhoon. OK, the instruction book warned of over-filling, but really, what male of the new millennium reads the instructions all the way through. 

Mix virtually exploded out of the top like a cannon and popped the lid like a well-shaken beer.  If this were water it wouldn't have been so bad; however, dried margarita mix has the qualities of flypaper lying on the deck.

The stuff still fuses to sneakers after six months.  The story isn't over.

We, the guys, pulled out the instruction book again to scan appropriate pages on mixing ingredients and were ready for another launch.

Just the right amounts, just the right starting technique, just the right throttle to keep it all blending, but it leaked like a sinking vessel and spilled even more mix on the already soaked deck.

One more humiliating crack at the instruction book, and this time, with the gasket right side up, it worked like a charm.  Life is good.

To this day, I insist it became easier to operate as a function of its simplicity than the effects of a few margaritas.

This toy attracts throngs like a gladiator movie and rates exceptionally high on the all-important quixotic meter. From TailGator® in (Grass Valley, CA (888) 874-7677).  Ya' just gotta' try one.