"A Picnic with Camels Provided by a Coffee Mug Tycoon"


There's going to be two camels at the picnic, and they're for everyone so plan on bringing things to do while you wait in line. I suggest maybe pieces of paper to rip into small pieces or multiple, multiple bottles of pop with words indicating a prize has been won possibly printed on their caps' interiors (these will be for unscrewing one at a time very slowly). And, before things go yuck like a hand thrust into a pocket full of marmalade, I want to make it clear that if any of the caps have prizes indicated on their interiors they will be given to me, so that I can place them on my dresser until the day after the last possible redemption date and then throw them into the trash can.

The camels are a gift (well, the rental of the camels more specifically) from my boss, Alexander Brimmington, heir to the great Dutchessfield Brimmingtons' coffee mug fortune. For those of you who have been out of touch with me as of late (oh, so many, what a shame!), I met AB at the train station last October on a windy night. After a short conversation (actually so short I shall write it right here: Me, "Is he ok?" AB, "They were wax bullets. Grab the wheel, you're driving me home,"), I was unexpectedly driving the white-haired fogie back to his estate. Of possible note is that the above conversation occurred after I witnessed AB shoot his previous limo driver in the forearm for being tardy and toss him on the sidewalk. The ride home was silent but for his last-second top-of-the-lungs shouting of "left!" or "right!" when he wanted me to turn the wheel (I had no idea where I was going). As I parked the limo on the grass, AB offered me the job on a permanent basis if I would keep my "big fucking mouth shut (presumably about filling his old driver's forearm with wax)", and "promise not to park thee fucking auto on thee fucking turf," to which I replied, partly out of extreme fear (he still had at least eight wax bullets left, he could've had more in his pocket) and partly because I hated working at the train station gift shop (I had sold four packs of gum, eleven newspapers and a wooden train whistle in the eight months I worked there), "What time should I be here tomorrow, or should I sleep here in the auto?" This may sound like a smart-ass answer, but I was seriously asking what he wanted me to do.

AB's great-uncle Leopold invented the coffee mugs with your business's logo, your baby's head, or phrases like "God Made Men to Make Me Money for My Cigarettes" or "Grandkids are God's Little Way of Saying Thank You, Now Start Cooking" on them. And, by ruling his empire with an iron fist and sending out relatives to the four corners of the world to oversee his expansion efforts, Leopold built a large fortune and a rock solid company structure. AB took over after Leopold realized that his blood lust for cash and world domination of the image bearing coffee mug industry had waned and stepped down. Needless to say, there was an intense battle for control of the company (Leopold had four brothers, seven sons, twenty-six grandchildren, twelve nephews, and forty-five great nephews). AB won out because he was the only one with red hair. Leopold never trusted a man with red hair but he figured that all the years of ridicule and abuse would provide AB with the necessary rage to be a devastatingly tyrannical CEO. In all of this Leopold was right, and in the twenty years AB has managed Brimmington Coffee Mugs the company's stranglehold on the market has tightened each and every year.

But, enough of all that. The picnic is going to be stupendous. Besides the camels, as if they weren't enough, there will be mud wrestling, shotgun shooting contests, horseshoes, bingo (complete with prizes ranging from crock pots to gas-powered scooters to wetsuits to spice racks with gourmet quality spices), and an awards ceremony. Oh, I just remembered, I already ordered a few boxes of paper and multiple, multiple bottles of pop for the camel line, so don't worry about that. By the way, I realize that the whole thing with ripping paper and opening the pop bottles might have seemed strange, but in actuality they both make total sense. The paper, the more random of the two, is for confetti. The boxes I've ordered are to be filled with paper of different colors. Trash bags will be used to collect it all and it will be utilized during the awards ceremony. The pop bottles, aside from allowing us the fun of finding out if we have won prizes, are meant to keep AB from flying into a fit. You see, his daughter (allergic to bees) was attending a picnic some fifteen years ago and, upon returning to the pavilion from sliding on a slide on the requisite playground, she took a sip from her pop can, swallowed a bee and died! So no cans, just bottles with firmly closable, thereby bee a'climbing in preventing, caps.

I will end with a reminder about the awards ceremony. It starts at 4:00pm. AB hasn’t decided the categories yet, but remember that if you are not present for your award it gets thrown in the lake.