Picnic Nightmares

I had a dream last night that I moved far away from here, to a beautiful little place in the mountains that, while not as glamorous as the huge Wrightesque and ultra-modern houses overlooking the valleys nearby, was very nice, and functional in that it served as a base for all my bicycling adventures. Only a few days after the move, my boss showed up. After I'd left, he'd joined the mafia, and had come visiting to make me host picnics for the various mob families in the area who wanted to use the mountains to meet as they were far from authorities. I only hosted two picnics before I woke up in a sweat.

It's dreams like these that make you realize that while you think planning a picnic for your department (three departments if you add the department we just merged with) leaves no indelible impression on your psyche, you're very wrong. And here I thought the only impact to my person was the physical exhaustion of loading and unloading the Ford Focus top to bottom and front to back twice.

As an amusing aside to my picnic hosting activities, we were going to leave a bunch of sodas and bottled water for the department that was having their picnic the day after ours. After talking to the Park and Rec boss, I was told in no uncertain terms that we couldn't leave anything behind. Knowing that the maintenance guy (nice guy - shout out Abraham) would be along later to lock up and check for issues, I thought it would be easier to take everything home rather than risk getting called back to the park at 7 or 8 p.m. However, I didn't realize that someone had already told the other department the soda and water was there. So the next day, when I was returning the extra volleyball set to City Hall, the Park and Rec admin gave me a bit of the riot act about our company accusing their maintenance staff of stealing sodas and water. Doh! I think I'll haul some donuts and coffee over there on Tuesday morning just to grease the wheels.