The Great Indoors

It was a sunny Saturday morning, sufficiently cool for a walk. I was in the kitchen reading the paper when Tasha joined me. "What a lovely day for a picnic," she hinted. She waved at the window where the sun teased the remaining green tomatoes into ripening before the frost.

I showed her the weather section of the paper. "It could rain later this afternoon."

"That's not for a long time, if it even happens," she said optimistically. "We could go for a walk to the lake and have a wonderful picnic." She glanced at the mugs and teapot on the table. "Thanks for making the tea."

I winced. "A picnic near the lake seems totally life threatening. What about fire breathing ants, or deadly mosquitoes not to even mention the menace of ticks and Lyme disease? It happened to President Bush, you know!"

She ignored my comment. "Such a lovely day." She said a little sadly.

I served us peanut butter and rye toast. "We could have our picnic right here at home, in the sunroom with the slider open and fresh air blasting in at us from the deck."

"That's not really the same thing."

"It could be. Instead of looking at trees and weird patches of buggy crawly damp ground we could look at the wonderful art on our walls, even put on an arty foreign film laced with existential undercurrents. But more to the point, what's for lunch?"

"What's is it about you and going outside?" She peered at me as though I had been infected by some sort of strange tribal malady from Borneo.

"I go outside all the time," I said staunchly. "Daily to the mailbox, plus we take walks to the library and all around the Common." I took a deep breath and for a moment felt like a big game hunter in Equatorial Africa about to mount an elephant and head off into the bush on safari.

"If you had your way you'd just as soon never leave the house." She said a little sharply.

"What can I say? I love our home! Here we can read and do creative projects free from bugs and things that bite; here we can enjoy your incredible cooking and not have to worry about poison ivy or crazed killer wasps."

"But I like the outdoors." She persisted ignoring any possible truth to what I had to say.

"Never let me stop you from enjoying it." I tried saying that as kindly and understandingly as possible for a husband talking to a wife who has these weird urges to climb mountains or take lengthy hikes in woods or around lakes, where almost any sort of calamity could happen.

"Didn't you enjoy being outside when you were a boy?"

"Of course I did." I smiled remembering the great screened porch at my grandmother's house at Narragansett Pier. "It's not being outside that bothers me. It's all those wild feral things that inhabit the out of doors, that have it in for those of us who trample upon their lairs or nests or dark places where they lie in wait."

She sighed. "I'll bet if there was an enormous yard sale and we didn't have our car handy you'd be up for walking over to it. No questions asked!"

"Absolutely! Walking to a neighborhood yard sale is a far cry from venturing into the deep dark depths of the woods, or walking gingerly along some country road where cars kick up dust as they speed past."

She shook her head. "I fear some might think you're exhibiting elderly behavior. Have you ever thought of that?" She sliced up apple and peaches and shook on some cinnamon sugar.

"Just because I prefer the grace and solemnity of the great indoors you feel the need to be critical and to find fault with me."

"But I want us to go for a walk and enjoy a lovely picnic lunch by the lake."

"Snakes live near lakes. I still remember boyhood warnings on TV from Marlin Perkins when he hosted Wild Kingdom."

"Then I'll bring along an extra sandwich just in case a cobra or python emerges from under a rock while we're there. I made tuna salad and just for you added jalapeno peppers and roasted garlic."

" Sounds wonderful." I sipped my tea.

"Whether or not you come along, I'll be having lunch by the lake. You are of course invited to join me or to stay home and eat peanut butter ‘til it comes out of your ears."

I finished my tea, looked at the clock and got up from the table. It was nearly nine thirty. "Ok, let's go right now. We'll have an early lunch and be back home before the Northeaster or that hurricane in the mid Atlantic moves in and devastates the region."

That caused her to pause. "In which case," she said slowly, " I'll be sure to include a hurricane lamp in the picnic basket along with some survival rations just in case we're forced to live in a tree until it passes."