My husband has become the BBQ Dictator of our local Little Aths Club

"It slows down the system," Shona reports that her husband - who takes his job seriously because he cares - said about having nowhere to place cooked sausages on his first day.

Generally speaking, my husband is pretty relaxed; he doesn't take himself too seriously and I wouldn’t say he worries or stresses very often. But one year ago, this all changed.

It was a Friday evening in October of 2022 when my youngest daughter started at our local Little Athletics club. Because both our kids were participating in different sports, my husband took her, and I took my eldest to her commitment.

This decision turned out to be life-changing.

Okay, so maybe not life-changing but it was definitely the first step in bringing out a side of my husband that I’d never seen before and this ‘other side’ is amusing, sweet and concerning in equal parts.

Want to join the family? Sign up to our Kidspot newsletter for more stories like this.

RELATED: ‘Being a working mum with kids in sports is hard’

The 'sausage over-cooker'

It all started watching last season’s weekly, post-session BBQ efforts.

While the coordination was deemed “good enough,” by my husband, the cooking of the BBQ, well that was another matter entirely. In fact, after a few weeks of sausages that were not ready until about an hour after the already late into the evening finish or burnt sausages that he described as like eating “chunks of sausage-shaped metal,” he put his hand up to cook. And he didn’t ever stop.

In fact, apart from one-week last season, where the ‘sausage over-cooker’ beat him to the signup sheet, my husband managed to cook, “perfectly” the remaining season of BBQs and received many compliments for doing so.

So, when some volunteer jobs popped up in the lead up to the 2023/24 season and one was for ‘BBQ Coordinator,’ well it was like the spotlight shone onto my BBQ tong, apron-clad husband and with one message via the app, he was anointed, the ‘BBQ Coordinator.’

Shona with her husband. What a mighty good man. Image: supplied

RELATED: Mum is shocked by parents at sports competition

"He brings a very high standard to the role"

The BBQ Coordinator position is reasonably time-consuming and takes up a fair chunk of his Friday afternoon. It involves collecting the sausages, onions and bread from the local supermarket, collating all the cooking tools, condiments, drinks and esky, then setting up the BBQ, ensuring it’s clean and ready to go for cooking.

Despite this, my husband takes it all in his smiling stride, as if he was born to do this job. Not only does it bring him very obvious joy, but he ensures he brings the level of this role to a very high standard by being extremely proactive.

He developed a BBQ-goods storage system that is well organised and efficient for transportation, set up, cooking and clean up at the end. This took most of one weekend, with multiple Bunnings trips and a long game of boot Tetris, where he worked out the best method of positioning the tubs. Oh, and he, of course, shared every step of his process with me.

Now, perhaps it is because of the official title that he became so motivated to do all of this, or perhaps it is something deeper that had him transition from parent helper to Friendly BBQ Dictator but soon after this epic organisation spree things got out of control.

Shona's family. Image: supplied

With the first week’s BBQ success under his apron, (with him also in charge of cooking), I noticed that the cooking sign-up sheet was filled, with only his name.

“I just can't have burnt sausages,” he told me.

Then he began to talk quite a lot about the perfect BBQ-ing technique for sausages and onion, as if his insights would lead to some sort of life revelation for me (they didn’t). I’d often also seen his computer screen displaying various BBQ goods – utensils, oil recommendations, and tips for quick cleaning (because as he said, “You can always be better.”)

But it was when the doorbell rang one weekday afternoon, that I knew I had lost my husband to a force far greater than me.

As I retrieved the parcel from the delivery person and saw my husband’s name, I called out to him to let him know something had arrived. Speedily, as if in anticipation, he bounded down the stairs smiling.

“They’ve arrived!” he announced.

Perplexed, I asked him what had arrived. Then, without answering, his smile grew even larger and he opened the plastic to reveal three shiny metal objects.

“Sausage holders,” he announced, holding one of them up as if he had just delivered a human baby.

“I ordered three because we just can't continue selling sausages without anywhere to put them. It slows down the system,” he explained.

So, that week, he very proudly took the three new sausage holders to Little Aths and placed each and every one of the sold sausages into them; from all reports, they are, like him, a great, shiny and slightly OTT asset to the club.

Originally published as My husband has become the BBQ Dictator of our local Little Aths Club