Date Night
February/04/2010 10:23 AM Filed in: Humor | Husbands | Couples | Nicole Hanratty | Life of a Rock Star
Date Night
By Nicole Hanratty
When it comes to date night, I feel just like the kid in Sixteen Candles whose parents are pushing him into the high school dance as he’s resisting, “I wanna go home. I wanna be with you guys!” Only in our scenario, it’s the kids pushing us out the front door because the babysitter is way more fun, as is our house without Mom and Dad. But it is the one night of the week when my husband and I know we get to walk away from the house, leave our concerns behind—hypothetically—and enjoy an adult dinner at a nice restaurant (sans the overpriced penne pasta with butter).
Ironically, dining alone seems to produce record speed service in even the finest of dining establishments. The beverages, bread and appetizer seem to appear within minutes of us being seated and the waiter stands eager by our tableside to take our entrée order. If we bring children to the same restaurant, it could be twenty minutes before we see a morsel of bread or a sip of water, which produces grumpy, hungry and restless kids. Likely the entire ordeal will take a full two hours—I have always postured that they must have to run to the market and buy the mac n’ cheese to make for the kiddies—with us paying $25.00 per bowl of cheesy noodles and wishing we had just gone to CPK which the kids were begging for in the first place. However when the hubby and I show up alone ready to relax and enjoy a fully pampered three-course two-hour meal, we are in and out in fifty-five minutes flat.
There are many date nights when we have been kicked to the curb by the quick service too soon and we stare at our watches in disbelief that it is only 7:00 PM, wishing we could just go back home. But we can’t… What would the babysitter think? Plus then we would be back on duty and in charge of overseeing the bedtime routine. So although we are wishing we could just curl up on our couch in our comfies at home, we push through just to get the break from the hour of endless delays and stall tactics before the lights are finally turned out.
Surely we are capable of entertaining ourselves for at least three hours away from home.?*
So we go to the old stand by—the thing we thought we would never do when we first met and were blissfully entertained by every word or expression the other made—and see a movie. If we are lucky the previews will be extra long to make up for the short movie we have chosen. (Seeing epic movies like Avatar just doesn’t happen for us on date night. We need caffeine and the promise of daylight when we leave the theatre to keep us focused on a three-hour flick.) Forget the number of stars a movie gets, we want to know the running time. The movie has to be just long enough so that we can take full advantage of the fact that the babysitter is there to handle the bedtime routine, but not so long that we can’t be in bed in time to watch Anderson Cooper and Larry King Live.
When finally the credits roll, I will inevitably look over to see my hubby sound asleep. Once again, I remind myself to resist the urge to get up and leave him snoring in the theatre. I also remind myself that this is why I never feel guilty about always choosing the movie that I want to see, because he falls asleep even if it is an action packed thrill chaser or a suspense thriller that he picks. Then I wonder if I should take it personally that he has fallen asleep on our date night, yet again. Hmmm…
Alas, we are back in the comfort of our own car happily heading home feeling successful in our venture out, neither of us even suggesting that we hit a coffeehouse or a have a nightcap in a club. The evening is considered a win if we have actually—not just hypothetically—left our worries behind, escaped an argument, a heated debate or worse…an evening of the dreaded married couple silence syndrome.
Six more nights and counting until the next temporary eviction from our comfortable couch… If only there were a restaurant that allowed us to dine in our pajamas.
Au revoir for now…n
*This is not a typo. The period and the question mark are intended to both be there. The author is not certain whether this is a statement or a question.
By Nicole Hanratty
When it comes to date night, I feel just like the kid in Sixteen Candles whose parents are pushing him into the high school dance as he’s resisting, “I wanna go home. I wanna be with you guys!” Only in our scenario, it’s the kids pushing us out the front door because the babysitter is way more fun, as is our house without Mom and Dad. But it is the one night of the week when my husband and I know we get to walk away from the house, leave our concerns behind—hypothetically—and enjoy an adult dinner at a nice restaurant (sans the overpriced penne pasta with butter).
Ironically, dining alone seems to produce record speed service in even the finest of dining establishments. The beverages, bread and appetizer seem to appear within minutes of us being seated and the waiter stands eager by our tableside to take our entrée order. If we bring children to the same restaurant, it could be twenty minutes before we see a morsel of bread or a sip of water, which produces grumpy, hungry and restless kids. Likely the entire ordeal will take a full two hours—I have always postured that they must have to run to the market and buy the mac n’ cheese to make for the kiddies—with us paying $25.00 per bowl of cheesy noodles and wishing we had just gone to CPK which the kids were begging for in the first place. However when the hubby and I show up alone ready to relax and enjoy a fully pampered three-course two-hour meal, we are in and out in fifty-five minutes flat.
There are many date nights when we have been kicked to the curb by the quick service too soon and we stare at our watches in disbelief that it is only 7:00 PM, wishing we could just go back home. But we can’t… What would the babysitter think? Plus then we would be back on duty and in charge of overseeing the bedtime routine. So although we are wishing we could just curl up on our couch in our comfies at home, we push through just to get the break from the hour of endless delays and stall tactics before the lights are finally turned out.
Surely we are capable of entertaining ourselves for at least three hours away from home.?*
So we go to the old stand by—the thing we thought we would never do when we first met and were blissfully entertained by every word or expression the other made—and see a movie. If we are lucky the previews will be extra long to make up for the short movie we have chosen. (Seeing epic movies like Avatar just doesn’t happen for us on date night. We need caffeine and the promise of daylight when we leave the theatre to keep us focused on a three-hour flick.) Forget the number of stars a movie gets, we want to know the running time. The movie has to be just long enough so that we can take full advantage of the fact that the babysitter is there to handle the bedtime routine, but not so long that we can’t be in bed in time to watch Anderson Cooper and Larry King Live.
When finally the credits roll, I will inevitably look over to see my hubby sound asleep. Once again, I remind myself to resist the urge to get up and leave him snoring in the theatre. I also remind myself that this is why I never feel guilty about always choosing the movie that I want to see, because he falls asleep even if it is an action packed thrill chaser or a suspense thriller that he picks. Then I wonder if I should take it personally that he has fallen asleep on our date night, yet again. Hmmm…
Alas, we are back in the comfort of our own car happily heading home feeling successful in our venture out, neither of us even suggesting that we hit a coffeehouse or a have a nightcap in a club. The evening is considered a win if we have actually—not just hypothetically—left our worries behind, escaped an argument, a heated debate or worse…an evening of the dreaded married couple silence syndrome.
Six more nights and counting until the next temporary eviction from our comfortable couch… If only there were a restaurant that allowed us to dine in our pajamas.
Au revoir for now…n
*This is not a typo. The period and the question mark are intended to both be there. The author is not certain whether this is a statement or a question.
