I have a pretty picnic mat. It is brown in colour, with slashes of orange at the corners. It is so pretty that i have to tell everyone who goes to picnics with me about it. One fine day two weeks ago, it took up a task it had never quite had before: to become exhibit A.
Here was what happened.
On a not-too-sunny Saturday that drizzled on-and-off like a woman having her pms, my mates and I went BBQing at East Coast park. Mr Bunny, in his trusted mini van, came to pick us up from our houses. Along the way and when we finally arrived at ECP, the Grand Dame wasn't particularly in a good mood and we had to take whatever of her insolence that came our way, be it an overcast sky, sudden gust of wind, etc. But the BBQ had to go on. And so we did.
We needed to choose a good spot to BBQ. Afterall, it needed to be a place where there's light, since it was already evening. But finding a good spot on Saturday evenings at ECP was so much of an arduous task, with people occupying the tables and seats like they were glued to them for the rest of their lives.
After tracking through a jungle of trees, we finally came to our little idyllic piece of heaven, the breakwater. With no time to lose, we started on our picnic adventure, hoping to beat the Grand Dame at her game, frantically setting up the pit and taking out all the food that was to be grilled.
While Mr Bunny and I were trying to set up the pit, Mrs Bunny, Ms Tay and Ms Lim had other plans in mind: they wanted to set up the perfect picnic spot. So they started discussing -- at length -- where they should place the newspaper such that the newspaper wouldn't get wet with all the puddles of water at the breakwater. After much thought, consideration, analysis and evaluation, they found the perfect position, which was exactly 30.00 cm away from the bbq pit. And then, the highlight of the evening, my pretty picnic mat, was going to make her appearance, on top of the newspaper. After laying it down, the newspaper sheet looked like a giant, waiting to gobble up the puny picnic mat that was sitting pretty on it. I told them my mat was pretty, not BIG. I didn't know what gave them the idea.
So we started bbqing. 5 minutes down. Bits of the pork chop, satay, hotdog and fishballs were done. 10 minutes later, our tray of food multiplied. Within 25 minutes almost everything was done. Thirtieth minute. Drizzle. BBQed last batch of food. Packed up. Thirty-first minute. Packed up. Packed up. Packed up. Panic. Rush. Packed up. Extinguished fire. Packed up. Packed up.
Oh wait. We haven't even sat on my pretty picnic mat yet. So there goes the fastest BBQ ever recorded in my Guinness Book of record, with the pretty Exhibit A playing the role of the bimbo -- nice to look at, but of no use.
