Tonight is picnic picnic picnic night for mommy and me.

Every month mommy takes me to a corporate picnic. Last month the picnic was inside of a big hotel. We all ate spaghetti and meatballs and apple pie. This is for mommy’s work. Mommy’s co-workers come to the dinners and some of them bring kids too, kids like me. But I never play with them. None of us kids play at the picnics; we just eat and sing the songs.

This month we get hotdogs, just hotdogs. No dessert. There is lemonade but mommy said it was only for the adults. The big people with the red cups have the lemonade. A row of mommys and daddys stand behind the orange cooler and wait to put more special lemonade in their cups. There is just water in my squishy white cup.

This month we are in the church basement instead of the big hotel. I like the hotel better because our church basement is dark and smells old.

I like picnic. I like to say it. Just say it, say it to yourself right now.

Pic-nic. You can say it again. Picnic. I just like how it sounds, it sounds funny.

There is another drink too, except not in an orange cooler. Fruit juice, that pink and red color you see when a loose tooth pops out for under the pillow. Before it’s a dollar. The red juice is inside of a big plastic bowl, in front of the room and alone like a new classmate. Even mommy isn’t allowed to drink that juice, not tonight, she says. Only a few grown-ups can have that juice tonight.

Pic-nic.

I like to say it over and over.

That red juice, the juice mommy can’t have, is funny too. Not picnic funny. Not special either, like the lemonade. Not funny like picnic. Just funny. Funny like weird. Mommy doesn’t let me get up to see the juice. That’s only for some people, now sit down. I don’t care anyway, I say.

Picnic. I say it until it doesn’t make any sense.

That word is like the two posts at each end of grandma’s picket fence. Perfect and narrow and straight. In between, each pokey post is everything the word means.

Paper plates and plastic forks and crock pots full of whatever.

Mommy’s funny co-workers, funny like weird.

The juice that I’m not allowed to have and don’t care any at all about.

Picnic.

There are six people in front of the room now, in front of all the tables and chairs. There are seven new students; this is counting the funny juice. They all stand alone. The people in front are dressed in the same red and white shower robe costume. Mommy’s boss in front is talking about waking up. Performance. A demonstration of commitment to the company.

Now the singing starts, but this song mommy hasn’t taught me. I look through the swaying legs and see that the other kids don’t know this song, either. One of them is holding onto his daddy’s leg. Mommy and all the grown-ups sing loud.

Up front there is another new student. One that I didn’t spot before. That makes eight now, counting the juice. A little boy just like me. A little boy in the same robes as the other grown-ups.

Everybody keeps singing, keeps getting more louder. I ask mommy why that boy can have the juice and I can’t have the juice. But it’s too loud and she is singing too much to hear me.

The other mommys and daddys up front all bend down with their cups. Scoop up the funny red juice. They all drink and then lie down on the floor next to the juice. Mommy’s boss puts a black towel over each of their faces.

Pic-

They all wiggle on the ground and then go to sleep.

-nic.

---

Hello everyone. Another short. This one is in a bit of a different style than the first (I am constantly experimenting), but I think you guys might enjoy it. In 'Picnic' I was 'speaking simply', trying to emulate speech as if it really were a little boy telling you the story. Tell me what you think.