Certificate: Association of Men Who Own One Smoker

Confer charter membership on the man you know who owns exactly one smoker. He qualified in April, at your table, on the second unprompted mention of how long a brisket should rest. Induction is automatic at the second mention. The first is just enthusiasm.

The certificate states the qualifications plainly, because they're plain. He owns one (1) smoker, offset, bought last March, and has mentioned it on 214 documented occasions. Mentions per gathering: 6.1 average, peak of nine on the Fourth of July, four of them before noon. Conversations redirected to bark, mid-sentence, at the table: several — the record says "several" because the guests stopped counting and you didn't.

Membership carries one condition, printed in the border where conditions go: it terminates upon acquisition of a second smoker. The Association has no alumni. Former members are not spoken of.

The seal depicts one smoker, exactly, in profile. Mail it framed. He'll hang it in the garage, above the smoker, and every guest for the rest of the year will get told about both. You gave him that on purpose, because you love him.