When You're A Stubborn Detective and You Persevere, Even When You're Pissed Off and Cheap

I bought a new grill a couple of years ago and it is my tradition to spend a large portion of my summer months outside standing by the grill. Last summer, one of the grill handles broke and I duct taped it to stay in place. This summer, the other half broke off and I realized, "Fudge. This sucks. Duct tape won't work."

I went to a few home stores to see what they have in stock, but they didn't have a thing. Frustrated, I crawled underneath the grill to get all the important digits for the actual product that I own. Technically, I think Brinkmann should give me a new grill, but I don't have the receipt and I doubt they'd give me a new grill simply because of a faulty handle. So, being the nerd that I am, I played sleuth last night and worked with the numbers I had until I finally found a Brinkmann distributor that specializes in parts.

Now, note: I found many Brinkmann grill part stores, but not one had the handle that would fit my grill. In my OCD mode, however, I kept googling and googling, deeper and deeper in grill part terrain (read SKUs and measurements, models, and advice columns) until I finally found the part I was looking for. Was it expensive? Ah, it could be worse. The cost of shipment was actually more than the part.

The waiting begins today. I've been using tongs to open and close the flaming pit, and when the replacement handle comes in, I'm hoping it is easy to assemble, perfect for my model, and painless.
I have to say, however, that the way the handle is assembled is very flimsy - it is easy to see why it broke so easily.

On one hand I feel like I'm Tim on an episode of Home Improvement, and on the other hand I'm an aggravated consumer perturbed that I had to do this hunt for a two-year old grill, anyway. But victory will be mine if the 14'' handle fits like my investigation showed that it would.