Picnics
don't exist. Now, before you go all jazz hands and I wake up one morning with a
shredded tartan throw in my bed what I mean is they don't exist in the sort of
idyllic Norman Rockwell, Sense & Sensibility way. For one, there are
insects, ants and bees mostly. And wasps. Don't think there won't be wasps.
Secondly, something they neglect to mention in their vivid depictions of breezy
luncheons is fields, or any expansive grassed area, are nearly always muddy -
moisture being prerequisite for grass. A blanket in a field is not entirely
dissimilar from the skin that forms on the top of a Latte or that crust on the
top of the sewage trap on a dairy farm (for two universal analogies). Plus
there's a high probability of an arctic wind - the kind that gets deep into the
bones. In fact, for regular, down-home country people the difference between
picnicking and being a tramp is blankets. And bindles. And I'd rather give both
to an actual homeless person than participate in one of these alfresco
shams.
I have no doubt that in Austen's time picnics were probably quite nice. Not having to prepare and transport food yourself would make for quite the leisurely afternoon of flattering young ladies with tales of derring-do or, if you're an old woman, planning your daughter-based pyramid scheme. But in her day people had grounds and people had people to tend those grounds - "grounds people" I believe they're called - who could search out a few square feet of unsodden terrain for brunching on. It's funny that those who had grounds had no jobs and people that didn't were actively employed. Hahaha.
Maybe my experience is not everybody's experience. Maybe my antipathy towards outdoor lunching stems from teenage trauma - if acute boredom can be deemed traumatic.
I was seventeen when I attended my first and only non-compulsory picnic. Someone had the idea for the picnic - probably me as I had just read Washington Square and imagined myself as one of its characters (possibly Catherine)
We decided to be classy. This meant beer in bottles rather than the canned variety. And with seventeen-year-olds being famous for their sommelier abilities; there was wine. Two bottles of pink fizz and a cask of the fruitiest of Lexias - which having travelled in the back sill of the car was as tongue-blistering as it was tannin-heavy. Being the designated driver, which I must say was news to me at time, of course meant basically no drinking (one already hot beer nursed for hours somehow makes you more sober). And when you're not drinking your sloshed friends can be incredibly boring.
The highlight of the day was when my good friend John*, cigarette in one hand chicken wing in the other jokingly calling another picnicker a "cock" over his shoulder as he relieved himself, only to have said cock shove him forward so he got piss all down himself. He spent the remainder to the afternoon pointing his crotch in the direction of the sun and demanding new pants.
The Observer Effect, in science, is the theory that you can't measure the outcome of an experiment without changing the outcome. Maybe that's the same with picnics: planning a picnic spoils the picnic.
Oh and as we were packing up Sally* got stung by a wasp. I guess that's the real moral of the story: DON'T THINK THERE WON'T BE WASPS.
*: Names changed to protect the urine-encrusted and throbbing
I have no doubt that in Austen's time picnics were probably quite nice. Not having to prepare and transport food yourself would make for quite the leisurely afternoon of flattering young ladies with tales of derring-do or, if you're an old woman, planning your daughter-based pyramid scheme. But in her day people had grounds and people had people to tend those grounds - "grounds people" I believe they're called - who could search out a few square feet of unsodden terrain for brunching on. It's funny that those who had grounds had no jobs and people that didn't were actively employed. Hahaha.
Maybe my experience is not everybody's experience. Maybe my antipathy towards outdoor lunching stems from teenage trauma - if acute boredom can be deemed traumatic.
I was seventeen when I attended my first and only non-compulsory picnic. Someone had the idea for the picnic - probably me as I had just read Washington Square and imagined myself as one of its characters (possibly Catherine)
We decided to be classy. This meant beer in bottles rather than the canned variety. And with seventeen-year-olds being famous for their sommelier abilities; there was wine. Two bottles of pink fizz and a cask of the fruitiest of Lexias - which having travelled in the back sill of the car was as tongue-blistering as it was tannin-heavy. Being the designated driver, which I must say was news to me at time, of course meant basically no drinking (one already hot beer nursed for hours somehow makes you more sober). And when you're not drinking your sloshed friends can be incredibly boring.
The highlight of the day was when my good friend John*, cigarette in one hand chicken wing in the other jokingly calling another picnicker a "cock" over his shoulder as he relieved himself, only to have said cock shove him forward so he got piss all down himself. He spent the remainder to the afternoon pointing his crotch in the direction of the sun and demanding new pants.
The Observer Effect, in science, is the theory that you can't measure the outcome of an experiment without changing the outcome. Maybe that's the same with picnics: planning a picnic spoils the picnic.
Oh and as we were packing up Sally* got stung by a wasp. I guess that's the real moral of the story: DON'T THINK THERE WON'T BE WASPS.
*: Names changed to protect the urine-encrusted and throbbing
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