When I called my buddy Al today to invite him to my annual Independence Day picinic, he said, “Thanks, but no thanks. Last year’s was my last! This year, on the Fourth, I’ll just stay home and observe it with a fifth.”
I didn’t blame him. I’d tried to avoid my previous year’s mistakes by arranging a simple, enjoyable outdoor luncheon instead of another overeating, overdrinking and overheated endurance contest. Somehow, I didn’t succeed.
Our backyards are too primitive now to serve as feasting places because our usual meals are served in air conditioned homes with comfortable dining rooms and computerized kitchens. By comparison, a present day barbecue resembles a gathering of earthquake or shipwreck survivors.
After this year’s failed attempt I will no longer submit to the rigors of these fiery feasts. I intend to hang up my greasy, charred apron and burn my brazier!
There were 22 in attendance at today’s debacle, not counting the ambulance squad, but they were late arrivals. I exchanged the usual jovial greetings with arriving friends and they offered polite compliments on my lawn and gardens. But a couple of hectic hours later after the guests had finished a keg of beer and a box or two of wine, it became one of my typically out-of-control picnics.
Some guests were nodding or safely dozing, but their kids were running amok and had wiped out my tomato and marigolds with the hedge trimmer. Marshmallows had been inserted in my poor dog Molly’s ears and she couldn’t understand why she didn’t hear her own barking.
I was too busy to notice much of this with my two grills flaming. There was no hair left on either forearm and my eyebrows were gone, giving me a look of astonishment.
A fairly sober guest offered to help. “Do you need anything from this charcoal pile?” he asked……”That’s not charcoal,” I replied. Those are the hamburgers. Hide them inside the rolls and then serve the hot dogs, which are badly burned on only one side. So rotate them in the rolls and call them ‘lightly done’ and ‘very done.’ ”
The yellowjacket squadron attacked at four o’clock. I grabbed a handy aerosol can from the shed and blasted away at them until I heard screaming and discovered I’d painted Mr. Myers and his wife with Rustoleum Green Enamel.
Old Mr. Blake seemed to have suffered a sunstroke. I couldn’t get anyone to help me carry him into the house so I just hosed him down and he woke up. It might have been the loud shouting at the fist fight that revived him.
About then, the fun seemed to go out of the picnic. I don’t know who called the ambulance squad, but they were very helpful, attending to groggy Mr. Blake, the yellowjacket victims and the freshly painted Myers couple. I offered hamburgers and hot dogs to the crew, but they politely declined. (And who’d blame them?)
Late last night I called Al to tell him about the day’s events . He sympathized and invited me over to help him finish his fifth. What a pal!
Imagine That 