Picnic

Arranging a picnic with my senior class was a disaster. The five octogenarians I teach on Thursday mornings are a lovely bunch, but their ears have seen better days. This makes my job slightly more difficult, especially when I have to arrange a picnic with them because to shout at people for one hour is not my idea of fun.
We all agreed to meet the following day at a nearby park. We exchanged telephone numbers in case one of us had to drop out. I said my number to the class and they slowly wrote it down with shaky hands. I got them to read it back to me. Instead of waiting to recite their number one by one, they all blurted out the number at once, causing an incoherent mess. I then gave my email address: samaholtmon@hotmail.com
What they wrote down was bizarre. Akaki wrote down: sham@popmail.com. Kimiyo wrote: samhalt@hoffmail.cop and Tersuo, who doesn't have a good grasp of English, wrote "cat." We met up the following day and the park we decided to go to was tiny and was surrounded by cherry blossom trees that were on the verge of blooming.


As we started to unfurl the floor mats, the quietly spoken, owl-like Masaho informed the group that he was going to the toilet. The others failed to notice his comment. Feeling bad that no one paid attention to him, I acknowledged him with a grin and a nod.
A few moments later Ohmi thundered, "Where's Masaho?!" which promoted the other three to look worried as they searched the area. I calmly informed them that he had nipped off to the toilet. The three seniors didn't hear me and were going berserk with worry at the thought that Masaho might have been abducted. They needn't have panicked because it was the safest park I had ever been to. The only danger one could have faced was getting run over by the little boy riding a tricycle nearby. But observing Ohmi, Tersuo, Akaki and Kimyo wheezing about the place, looking through shrubberies, trees and bins, you'd have thought something of a foul nature befell Masaho, who was at that moment contentedly pissing in a pot nearby.
Whilst the three huddled together to discuss how to solve this disaster, Masaho breezily shimmered out the toilet cubicle with a wave. The other seniors thought they had just witnessed a magic trick judging by their awed expressions at the sudden materialization of the errant Masaho.
After Masaho cleared up their pointless panic in Japanese we began to eat.
Akaki had packed all the food in her bag and distributed pastries filled with thick cream, multi-coloured tea cakes and hard boiled sweets, complemented with an endless supply of green tea. For most of this leisurely picnic the four others conversed in Japanese which excluded me and left me to stuff my face and admire the cherry blossoms. Whenever they chose to include me in their conversation, it was always at the worst time. For instance, when they asked me my plans for the weekend, my mouth was filled with creamy goo, and all I could say was: "MMMmmphmhmhmph fwwwoo fwooo."
When I did decide to involve myself in their conversation, it was always with bad effect. During a brief lull in their conversation, I picked this moment to make an observation - partly to appear interesting, but more to remind them that I was still there.
"What do the cherry blossoms symbolize in Japan?" I asked
The seniors’ faces contorted to a furrowed brow weighed heavily with concentration. I surmised that I picked a party-ruining question which had little room for humour. They answered my question with sincerity with words like "renewal" "growth" and "beauty". As soon as they felt their answer was satisfactory, they continued their own private conversation in Japanese, leaving me to stare at trees and suck on sweets like a baby.
We left the park after eating the food and drove to a nearby Japanese restaurant. I believed this restaurant was easy to find because it was only a five minute drive down a straight road. But Masaho, who was becoming quite a hazard, managed to get lost from our convoy of cars. To lose your way was remarkable given the fact he had lived in Iida for the past 80-odd years and should know the area like the back of his hand. But lose himself he did, causing the rest of us to loiter in the car park of the restaurant as we waited for him. Finally he emerged in a flurry of chaos as his car screeched into the car park after cutting up the oncoming traffic. This clearly did not concern Masaho because he briskly exited his car with a spring in his step, a smile on his face and without a care in the world.