Picnics and cell phones

This weekend was the weekend of picnics. Of course the weather co-operated in that the weather was sunny and hot. I mean HOT. Hot like you could feel your eyeballs melting. Hot like the heat from the asphalt cooks the hair off your legs. It was just plain HOTTTTTTTT!!!!

The first picnic was Friday evening. We had to bring our own food. Since I did not have time to be the "perfect" mother and wife I found a Little Ceasar's along the way and bought two large pizzas. Passionfruit was not delighted. They didn't have anything with veggies on it. The reformed vegetarian was jonesing for some veggie flesh.

When we got there off went the girls. I plopped myself down under a tree where I could watch the girls as they ran around with all the other children. It was a great to see folks I hadn't seen for a few months. Storyteller got overheated as did Miss Independence. I made them sit with e for awhile while the unnatural red, flushed cheeks faded. Amazingly Drama Queen did not get overheated. Normally she is the first to fall to the heat.

Our second picnic was Saturday. Last year we missed this annual picnic, and I really didn't miss it. But this year the folks that were still there when we got there around 5:00PM were normal folks. This is a picnic for Passionfruit's work group. It's an eclectic combination of blue collar workers with a bunch of eggheads. So the blue collars were still hanging on when we got there and the stuffy eggheads were gone.

This picnic was at the lake. So the girls played in the water with the other children. Needless to say the kids had a blast. Drama queen received the most attentions of the older boys (about 8 to 12 years old). DQ was covered in sandy, muddy dirt. I have never seen her so filthy in all her life. Passionfruit told me that the boys really found her attractive. Needless to say we are pretty darn scared. DQ is only 6 years old and drawing attention from older boys!

Next was the Sunday picnic. It was a church picnic. We got there about thirty minutes after the start time and all the shade provided by the tents set up was occupied. Now I wasn't necessarily looking forward to this picnic. I'm not a churchgoer in the sense that my life revolves around church activities. In fact I deliberately stay way from church activities. I go to Mass. That is it, nothing more. I made a pact with myself over 12 years ago that I would not get involved and I haven't. I plan to stay that way, also. But my husband enjoys social events. Always have always will. That's why I married him. I ride on his coat tails in social situations. He was the one who wanted to go.

Now as I said earlier, I was not looking forward this event. So perhaps this next vignette reflects my mood at that time. First thing I want to do when we got there is to feed the kids and myself. So I find myself standing in line. We are not going anywhere. I'm wondering to myself, "What's up?" Finally people start moving around this guy. He's the problem. There he was attempting to fix himself a plate with a freaking cell phone to his ear. He won't budge. I go around him. When he is in my way I'm as rude as I can be without being completely rude like pushing him away from the table. Which is something that I might have done if the thought had crossed my mind at the time. Which it didn't. So here's what I'm thinking: "Why the hell are you at stinking picnic if you're going to walk around talking on a stinking cell phone." I watch this guy, he remains on the phone the whole time I am getting food for my children and me. This takes like 30 minutes because ST doesn't like anything she sees but the sweet stuff. It takes that long to wear me down before I submit to the thought, "What the hell; it's a picnic after all." Back to the idiot on the cell phone I can only say that if this had been my husband I would have grabbed the phone and hit him over the head with it. Cell phones. They don't do anything but drive common decency out the door. Yes I own a cell phone but I always apologize for the damn thing going off. I'm also known not to answer the stupid thing. Passionfruit gets angry with me for not answering. So what!? This way he doesn't have to hunt so hard to find something to be angry with me.

So, next time, your on your cell phone holding up the food line you better watch out, someone may just push you out of the line and step on you.