The summer is over and I still have not made a picnic table.
While waiting for the snow to melt earlier this year, I fantasized about sitting in the shade of a leafy tree on a warm, sunny day, enjoying a hamburger on a nicely made picnic table. It was very far from the then reality of ten inches of snow on top of an inch of ice which was on top of five inches of snow. I’d not seen the ground in four months. So, my daydreams got pretty elaborate.

What I wanted and knew I would settle on was the traditional table with two benches. I took some time and looked at some pictures online to see how many pieces of wood I should get (I thought I would use 2×8 or 2×10). I normally base my estimates on what I think something should look like.
I did see some good-looking picnic tables of regular size and shape. They featured benches made from two 2×6 and tops made from six 2×6. and really, those dimensions seem proper to me. I did, however, also see a great many odd designs.
I understand the need to be novel and original, but there’s something ridiculous about an octagon-shaped picnic table. There’s nothing absurd about an eight-sided table, but what I saw had the bench built in. So, you have to step over the bench to sit at it (which is not a big deal) and then sit with your legs entangled in a maze of triangular prisons (maybe a big deal). There would be no room for your feet in the endless structure of the underside of the table. Those benches don’t support themselves.

Speaking of support, some people don’t understand that a picnic table is a matter of proper load distribution. I have seen tables that would flip over if a two-hundred pound man (a pretty normal weight for a grown man) sat at them. Some tables have the benches extend too far past where the legs hit the ground. Some tables have tops that are too narrow, thus making it likely the table will flip if the two-hundred pound man leans back a bit. That could potentially send two forty-pound children sailing through the air.
I also saw some bizarre contraptions that can, at some point, end up being a picnic table. If you want a picnic table, you may also want a garden bench. You may want a garden bench and no picnic table. You may want neither but I cannot see anyone wanting a picnic table that can transform into a garden bench. Although, perhaps it would be desirable if, once it turned into a bench, it did not look like a pile of lumber. I also wouldn’t want to imagine how the kids would look after they got caught in whatever mechanism folds that thing up.

I want a picnic table to sit under my tree and eat a hamburger and listen to the birds, the bees, the lawnmowers down the street, the kids in the park, the cars that drive by. Alas, I am for another year without a picnic table. Perhaps next year I can pull myself away from other things long enough to make it.
Alternatively, I could go buy the picnic table kit from the building supply store. It costs roughly three times as much as buying the materials. It has all the holes drilled in the right spots. It comes with carriage bolts and a set of instructions. Then I could just get one of my kids to make it. I could pay him by giving him a hamburger to eat out under the tree, in the cool breeze, while the sunlight flickered through the leaves. But when he was finished, he’d just go back to his computer.

Perhaps a picnic table with an electrical outlet. Or perhaps one with an actual computer built into it. Or maybe I should just satisfy myself sitting on my decrepit sofa looking at pictures of picnic tables. I can eat a hamburger here and watch tv. Isn’t that the real good life, after all?