All This and $10 on 2

Picnic in the Park

The days and weeks passed in a blur. My teachers were progressively becoming fonder of me as I finally began applying myself to my studies, reflecting in a sharp rise in my gpa from a 2.9 to a 3.8. I hadn’t skipped a single class since I had met Lauren, not that I had been skipping a lot, but sometimes you just gotta you know? My mood had dramatically changed as well as I had never been happier in my entire life and it was all due to my angel, Lauren. Lauren and I still hadn’t had our first ‘real’ kiss yet, which some of our friends thought odd, but that was soon about to change… 

Spring finally came around and Lauren was almost as excited about our date as I was. I say almost, because I had a surprise for her. I’ve never kept a secret from Lauren and this surprise had been the single-most difficult thing to keep all week.

I had attended church with her that Sunday so we could go straight to the park afterwards, I didn’t normally attend church as I was still trying to figure out what it was I actually believed and was harboring some ill-will towards my perception of the hypocrisy of organized religion in general. Lauren and her mother were both fairly religious, and while Lauren’s mother was not pleased with my reluctance, she sort of found it an endearing quality of mine, though,  and jokingly vowed to “save me yet.”

We arrived at the park shortly after twelve-thirty and the sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing and the creek was burbling merrily. Everything was perfect. Lauren was stunning in one of my plain white t-shirts which she tied into a knot on the side above her hip to keep from being completely lost in it, a pair of light sweat pants and her lovely light brown locks pulled into pig-tail braids. I was glad that she was finally acclimating to the weather as she was now more comfortable in less clothing, showing off more of her five-foot, ten-inch frame, perfectly-proportioned breasts and the alluring curvature of her hips.

I had everything we needed for the day packed in a hiking backpack and slipped it on in one easy movement from the trunk of my car. Lauren stepped close, her intoxicating scent filling up my senses and kissed me on the cheek. Hand-in-hand, we started on the trail. I had scoped out the trail and my spot the day before while Lauren was out with friends, making sure that the area was clean and clear and that the trail wasn’t suffering too much from either disuse or overuse. Everything was as I remembered it and that made me happy. Remembering the show that we watched with Kayla, I had cut a circle out of construction paper and glued pictures of three of the things that I had brought and drew a question mark on the fourth quadrant of the circle for the ‘Mystery Mouse-ke-tool’ and folded it into an envelope after setting everything else up yesterday, which I handed to Lauren as we set off. Lauren’s already mile-wide smile lit up even more and her emerald eyes sparkled when she opened the envelope.

About half-way up the trail, we came across a small tree that had 'fallen' across the path. Actually, I had put it there. We could have easily walked around or stepped over it, but what would be the fun in that?

“I think we’re going to need a mouse-ke-tool to get around this fallen tree.” I laughed to the vision of beauty by my side.

Lauren pulled the inventory from her envelope and examined the options:

1. Two (2) pairs of work gloves

2. A blanket

3. A picnic basket

4. Mystery Mouse-ke-tool

As I slipped the bag off of my shoulders, preparing to pull out a tool, Lauren said with a sly grin, “I think we need to use the Mystery tool!”

I just smiled at her.

“Okay fine!” She said in mock exasperation. “The gloves.”

I took the gloves from the bag and handed her a pair as I put mine on. Together we easily moved the ‘fallen tree’ off of the path and I returned the gloves to the bag.