A Date Night To Remember

The contents of this post happened during the bitterly cold winter of 2010. 

  Last winter, my wife and I set up a date night. We made the mistake of trying to actually plan it. Fate is very amused by our attempts to plan things.

  Our son was out of town for the weekend, and my parents were keeping the girls overnight. The idea was to catch an early non-animated movie (I had forgotten they even made those any more,) then maybe have dinner somewhere that didn’t involve plates and forks being thrown to the floor in 10-second intervals. We were also looking forward to being able to sleep late the next morning, possibly even as late at 6:00 a.m. I know what you’re thinking, especially if you have young children, “That’s crazy talk.” But sometimes you have to let your hair down and get reckless.

  However, an emergency came up with our son and we needed to pick him up a day early. We had to drive an hour or so to get him. Suddenly our plans were off track, which is a HUGE surprise, I know. Luckily, he offered to stay the night with my parents as well so we could still have our night out.

  After the kids were all settled, we were off. Of course, we were behind and decided to try for a later showing of the movie than we intended. But that was ok, because the movie was sold out anyway, which we found out after trudging all the way across the crowded parking lot in sub-zero temperatures. I made the classic mistake of not ordering our tickets online the previous summer. I don’t know why I was expecting to be able to get tickets from the ticket counter. What century am I living in?

  Since the next showing had been fully booked before the movie was actually finished filming, we decided to call it a loss and head home. We were thinking maybe we would order some Chinese food and watch a pay-per-view movie.

  As you probably guessed if you know much about me, that didn’t quite work out. But Ring Luck didn’t totally get us. We did manage to get our food ordered, albeit seconds before the electricity went out.

  We did happen to have a restaurant gift card someone had given us for Christmas for a place that most likely had light and heat, and most importantly after the day we’d had so far, alcohol. However, as you know, Chinese food can be prepared and delivered in ten minutes. It doesn’t matter if you’re right next door to the restaurant, or if you live three states over, they always tell you the same thing – “Ten minutes!” So it was probably too late to cancel the order, since it was probably halfway cooked before they hung up the phone.

  So we waited and checked on the kids, who did have heat. Next, we had a quiet, candlelit dinner, which was quite nice, despite the gradually decreasing temperatures. Later, it was getting pretty frigid with no signs that the electricity would be coming back on any time soon, and we needed to make a decision. My parents had told us we could come to their house for the night if things got too bad. On the one hand, frostbite was starting to set in and they had electricity and heat. On the other hand, all three of the kids were there.

  Don’t get me wrong. We really love our children and cherish the moments we spend with them. But, for some reason, we chose to stay home anyway.

  In the end, it wasn’t so bad of an evening. My wife and I got to spend some time reconnecting, which was really what the night was supposed to be all about. We got to take a break from some of the chaos that fills our lives. I really enjoyed our time together that night.

  Plus, we learned something. 1)Always buy your movie tickets in advance online; 2)Keep plenty of blankets and candles around the house just in case, and finally; 3) Six or seven hours later when the power came back on as we were sleeping, cozily huddled under several dozen layers of blankets, we learned to always flip off all the light switches in the house during a power outage because when the power does come back on, so do all the lights.

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