You Can Plan a Pretty Picnic

The window was cold to the touch, and felt good on the palm of your hand. Curious though, that it would be cold. The weather forecast said it was a high of 94 today, clear skies with no precipitation. You had your picnic basket packed, and your bicycle tires inflated, ready for the sort of beautiful relaxation you can only have on a day with a 94 high and clear skies. But turns out local celebrity weatherman Gerald Plotfunitae was wrong: Instead of 94 and clear skies, it was twelve degrees below zero and snowing.

You turned on the TV for the first time in weeks, and once you got past the disappointment that you broke your no-TV streak you watched a press conference where Gerald Plotfunitae explained that it was his bad, and he misread the cold front coming from the south as a small occluded front, but it was actually an incoming Ice Age. He offered everyone in town a signed headshot for the inconvenience.

What a bummer, you thought. You spent all night making a bologna sandwich for today’s one-person picnic and you’ll be damned if you eat alone in your kitchen like you did yesterday. Also you paid $40 for a Gerald Plotfunitae headshot at the county fair last year and darn you could have waited and gotten one for free.

You remembered your father’s final words to you before he passed: “Never let the weather ruin your day,” he said as he attempted to ward off an angry tornado with a green plastic broom. The tornado was seemingly afraid and moved in the other direction. Unfortunately shortly after that victory your father stepped on a gun.

So you put on your thickest long-sleeve and braved the freezing temperatures, picnic basket in hand.

The snow was 18 inches and growing, and required little hops to trudge. About thirty feet from your door you ran into Mrs. Vrapid, the spinster from Altoona who lived in the single-family home diagonal from your window. She nodded.

“Wild weather we’re having,” she exclaimed, “Dress warm!”

“You gotta!,” you responded with a big smile on your face that she couldn’t see as her eyes were mostly closed due to the violent winds. Also you had a scarf on anyway.

She asked if you knew anybody she could marry, you said no and then kept on your way.

You arrived at Littlestone Park half-past two. The green grass you were promised was covered in roughly two feet of well-packed snow. The sun gone. The trees ice. A Woolly Mammoth stomped by, happy that it could finally come out of the hibernation all Woolly Mammoths secretly went into.

You sat on the surface of a park bench that was still above the snow line, and sucked on the frozen bologna sandwich until you had your fill. You love bologna so your fill didn’t come for minutes, almost an hour. Years later you’d remember this moment as your last meal before mankind was forced to retreat underground as Woolly Mammoths reclaimed the earth.

As you bit into the softened end-piece of your frozen bologna sandwich, you noticed a twinkle of light in the corner of your eye. Normally you avoid anything ostentatious enough to be shiny, but your daily thirty-minute walk took you four hours and you were going to make the most of it. So you slid off the bench and hopped through the snow deeper into Littlestone Park.

Turned out the light reflection’s source was a mirror nailed to a tree trunk. You might not have many skills to offer anyone, but one thing you could do really well is approximate how long a mirror has been in a specific location and upon close examination it was obvious to you that the mirror had only been up for an hour, 85 minutes tops.

Another twenty minutes of hopping through the snow-flooded park took you to a woman, sitting by herself on an exposed tree-stump, a mirror laying on her lap.

“Excuse me,” you inquired politely, “Based on that mirror it looks like you’ve only been sitting in that spot for ten minutes.”

“That is correct,” the woman replied.

“Why are you hanging mirrors up around the park?”

“Saber-Tooth Tigers are afraid of mirrors,” she said, “and I’m doing my part in case they’re coming back too.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t they called Saber-Toothed Tigers?”

“What did I say?”

“Saber-Tooth Tigers. Without the e-d.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Also were there mirrors during the first Ice Age?”

“No, that’s why they’re afraid of them.”

“Oh I see,” you said, legitimately interested, “Anyway enjoy your day.”

Turns out she didn’t enjoy her day, as three hours later her boyfriend Sampson broke up with her for stealing his mother’s priceless mirror collection. But you didn’t know this at the time, so you just happily began your way out of the park, almost thirty inches of snow coming up to your mid-thighs.

You were almost halfway home when you spotted Gerald Plotfunitae going door-to-door, slipping autographed headshots into mail slots. The docile acceptance of your new reality was pushed aside by anger towards Plotfunitae -- the man who got your hopes up for a high of 94 and clear skies and a bologna sandwich you could chew.

“Hey!” you screamed as you hopped towards him, “I bought one of your headshots! You owe me 45 bucks!”

“That’s a lie!” Plotfunitae screamed in response, “I only sell my autographs for 40 bucks!”

Enraged that you were trying to extort him for an extra five dollars, Plotfunitae knocked you out cold with one punch.

You were found three hours later by a search-and-rescue team who took you here, to this underground survival bunker. And that, my lucky friend, is how you survived the first wave of the second Ice Age. We have assigned rooms and hot cocoa stations. Also an active theater community plus rents are reasonable. Let me know if you have any questions.

Also when I said he knocked you out cold, the pun was intended.