nanowrimo 2k9

Naturally, things weren’t that easy, the trip had been hell on everyones mind, the kids were past screaming, and nursing their hoarse throats, the parents in front were riding in silence trying not to look at each other. The anger smelled like acid and the A/C was broken so everyone had their windows down which howled with the speed of the car.

“This is gonna be a fun picnic” everyone thought sarcastically. Clearly it wasn’t going to be a fun picnic. These were the residents of woodvale, who were out for a fun drive, but felt that the paths out to the park were too short, so they would drive up and down the country road in short stretches elbowed by u-turns. None of them particularly liked doing it, but everyone agreed it was more pleasant than having a picnic in the park, and going for picnics seemed like the kind of thing a family like them should do.

The park was located in the center of the middle block of the town that had surrounded the residential area past the service stations, and was nicely bordered by the insane vehicle hating sentries. A result of the early mad ness, the smarter residents started parking far outside of the suburban area. At first they parked out in the trucking lots, but the no good punk local kids used to torch them in weed fits, because they were all fucking bored criminals, evens the parents. The smarter ones parked them out on the outskirts, or carved their own spots in the forest surrounding. This was a problematic arangement because the side roads didnt connect to the main road with the gas stations since the town roads were blocked off, consequently they had to drive 30 miles on a dusty road just to pull around to get back to the other side with the gas stations. Most of the cars were fuel inefficient, so then they had to carry around several full gas cans in the trunks of their cars just in case they ran out of gas trying to get back to the gas station. This also made the cars extremely prone to exploding.

Anyway, the family was gruffly driving the long way around in a car reeking of gas and trying to stop the picnic basket in the back from spilling and dumping their lovely sandwiches on the gas soaked carpet. The whole car was pretty much gas soaked. No one really wanted to deal with the picnic, but it was some kind of custom that they all hated, but still went through with it. Something to do with the neighbors, i guess.

The basket was packed with delicious sandwiches made from dinosaur blood. While no one liked the picnics, none of them would pass by the chance to have a delicious sandwich made from dinosaur blood. They were special that way. Now, this wasn’t the same as a “hand carved” sandwich, for sure, but it might have been a good chance for synergy if you could make a “hand carved” sandwich and drizzle dino blood all over it. That would be some serious protein pounding. But this family just had their old fashion car, old fashion basket, and old fashioned dinosaur blood sandwiches. I think there were some pickles or something on it too.

They rounded the corner and on to a pebbled road that ran between the filthy backroads and the main highway, with the gas stations. This particular leg of the trip was short and relatively enjoyable: since they had to leave the windows down to air out the smell of the gas, the dirt flying into the car on the back road coated everything with a grimy dust that just felt permeated by the gas vapors. The picnic basket, fortunately was closed and the sandwiches were dilligently wrapped individually, like some horrendous value pack of cheese or shitty candy you would get at wal mart. This stretch was still bumpy, but much less filthy, and the family caught their breath again, teeth clenched to avoid tongue biting on the larger bumps. The forest still surrounded the road, but the tall signs of the services stations were peaking out above the treeline, and the tank was happily more than half full.

The corner onto the main highway was actually a sharp step, and required full family co-operation to help. They had to get two jacks from under the driver and passenger seat. The father would put the car in neutral and then push it up to the edge of the curb, before engaging the parking break. Then he would have to jack the car as far up as possible so there was an inch of clearence over the curb. That, he would shift to drive, remove the break. Then, the whole family would lean the car forward so it fell off the jacks and land on the curb, at that point they rolled the car forward until the rear wheels were in position and repeated the process. Driving the other way, of course, they just hopped the curb.

Once they had made it across that ordeal, and had engine oil sticking to their coat of dust and grime, they would pull around soundly, and part just off the road so no sentries in the town would get the wrong idea. Having made the whole trip around the “block”, they walked past the first service station, cut down the main road, walked past their house and up into the park in the center of the residential area.

Thats where they could finally sit down and have a nice picnic, where they mostly sat in silence trying not to think about the ride home, or what they actually felt like.