The Picnic Gang gathered in our garden yesterday to wish the man of the house a Happy SevenOh.  In comparison to some of us in the group, he is still just a kid, but most of us concede that he’s added more dignity along with his years than the rest of us have altogether.  It’s always good to have one dignified member of the group.

As are all our picnics, it was potluck, more-or-less unplanned, and delicious.  The sun came out in all its glory.  The flowers smiled, the church across the street glistened and the chickens showed themselves now and then for a little local color.  There was chocolate cake and there were presents!

There were a couple of ‘serious’ presents, mostly from the newer members of the Picnic Gang – those who don’t yet know the ‘funny drawer drill.’  For forty years, anyone among us who has the bad fortune to rate a picnic near a birthday has had the good fortune of getting presents from all of our respective funny drawers.  (In case you don’t have one, it’s the place – drawer or otherwise—that you store the really impossible, outrageous or tacky gifts you’ve received over the years.  There they stay until the perfect re-gifting opportunity arrives or until your next garage sale or trip to the dump.)

Some of the better gifts have made the rounds several times. There is the blow-up birthday cake, complete with candles, that is a standard, although it didn’t show up yesterday.  None of us could remember who got it last – a sure sign that we have blown out several-too-many fake candles.  Two rag rugs in fair condition were among the offerings, though – long-ago gifts from the donor’s mother and nicely broken in, too!

We were all in agreement that the prize of day was a giant-sized (from CostCo, no doubt) unopened box of ‘Xtra Large’ Depends, the packaging dusty from years spent waiting in the garage of a not-to-be-mentioned party guest.  We all laughed until we were in some danger of needing to tear open that package and hand out the contents!

 We didn’t have candles on the cake and we didn’t sing Happy Birthday.  After all, the real deal is today.  The Birthday Boy and I are headed out of town, away from any stray revelers, to celebrate in a dignified way.   Or, perhaps we’ll just try to figure out how to make that annoying woman in our new Prius stop “recalculating… recalculating…recalculating.”