Our son was coming over after work, and I caught up with him on his cell while he was driving over.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked.

“Steak,” I replied, happy I’d splurged and picked up some sirloins on sale. There was silence on the other end.

“How are you going to cook that steak?” he asked. I told him either pan fried or on the griddle.

“Got anything else?” he replied.

I was quite indignant. After all, steak is no bargain these days, and I thought he’d be impressed I was putting on the Ritz for him.

“No offense, Mom, but the way you cook steak is awful, and I mean awful with a capital A,” he said.

Ouch. I knew I wasn’t an outstanding cook, but awful. That one cut to the core, but I had to agree.

My descent down the culinary path to mediocrity began with a mysterious barbecue pit and a cowardly dog…

A few years ago, I noticed our pet dog, Sparky, sitting in front of the gas grill on our patio. Not known for his patience, Sparky was quietly looking up at the barbecue grill.

“What’s going on, boy?” I said, glancing at the pit. I didn’t see anything, so I thought I’d open the lid and look inside.

My son roars with laughter at this point, saying I was like one of those actors in a “B” horror movie and the audience is screaming “Don’t open that door! Don’t open that door!”

I opened the door. Only in my case, it was the lid to the pit.

And what a surprise I got. Not some lunatic with a knife. Nope. I came face to whiskers with a rat.

I slammed the lid shut, jumped back 10 feet and then screamed like my hair was on fire. The dog started barking and, at that exact moment, my cell phone rang. It was my husband.

“What’s all that screaming and barking?” he said. I told him what happened, and he said he was on his way home. He asked if there was anything I needed.

“A gun and a heavy-duty garbage bag,” I screamed between gulps of air.

Every time I tell the story, the rat gets bigger, it goes from cowering to snarling and poison is dripping from its ferocious fangs.

By the time my husband got home, the rat had escaped — probably as terrified as we were — and the pit was disposed of the next morning. Ever since then, I’ve refused to have an outdoor barbecue pit.

Every once in a while, though, I stroll through the aisles at the big box stores and invariably find myself in the barbecue pit areas. Instead of looking at knobs and opening lids, I bend down and look underneath the cooking area.

I’m checking the size of the hole to see if anything with whiskers can crawl or squeeze through it. Most of the sales people think I’m a bit kooky until I tell my story. Then they shudder and point me to the indoor gas stove department.

I do miss the flavor of dinner straight off the pit and the convenience of throwing chicken on the grill while puttering in the garden or enjoying the evening breeze.

So it appears I’ll be searching for a barbecue pit with a thick mesh wire firmly welded over the hole and, in addition to pot holders and barbecue tools, arm myself with a shield, whip and pistol to hold every time I open the grill.

And maybe I can go from a cooking grade of “A” for awful to “A” for awesome.

Originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.