What Could Possibly Be Bad About Picnic Tables?

As a freshman at Penn State Mont Alto, my new college buds became very aware of my, how do you say, clumsy tendencies very quickly. In the span of one short year, my friends witnessed me almost get charred by a campfire when it got in the way of me passing out, me knocking over a ring display at the Bon-Ton (accidentally, of course), spitting cereal all over Bob Vilsack (a friend who drank warm soda and played one of The Birds tapes over and over again in his car), me continuously knock over stacked soda cans in my room, me break my prized Rolling Stones mirror, and me fall down a steep hill after a keg party, to name a few (I may go into more detail with these stories in the future).

But, probably one of the moments that probably crystalized the extent of my clumsiness (and/or stupidity) occurred one fine day towards the end of the spring semester. Somf, Spittoon (a friend of ours who chewed quite a bit of tobacco), and I went to Caledonia National Park - a kind of midway point between Mont Alto and Shippensburg. The day was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, and temperatures in the high 70's.....which meant women were shedding the shapless sweaters and jeans in favor of more comfortable and visually stimulating bikinis and Daisy Dukes. The park was full of students looking to unwind from final exam preparation. Somf, Spittoon, and I were no different. It was refreshing to get a way from the campus, which reminded us too much of schoolwork, and to go to a peaceful "retreat" which offered tremendous views of the fairer sex.

After a few hours there, we decided we would throw around the frisbee - maybe our athletic bodies and our tremendous disc-throwing skills would attract the fair maidens. Sadly, I was never very good at frisbee-throwing, so I had to "invent" a new way to gain the babes' interest. Little did I know that I would find such a way. Spittoon had flung the frisbee a great distance - well over my head, and I was determined to run it down and catch it before it hit the ground (probably because I wanted to get the attention of the half-naked chicks).

Even though they weren't presently looking at me, they soon would, as I plowed into a picnic table just seconds before I was to catch the frisbee. Tragically, the table didn't move an inch, and even more tragically, I got the attention of everyone lounging in the park. The first words out of my mouth were "I'm O.K.," but the evidence of a river of blood flowing down my leg led some to disagree with me.

As it turns out, we had to use the picnic blanket that we brought with us to slow the bleeding of my leg. As can probably be predicted, the women did not come in droves to see how I was doing. But, I guess I did give them a good laugh. And the good news is that I still have a rather large scar on my leg to remind me of that glorious day.