Date Night

Woman of the Law recently went on a date:

As for the date: Originally he was going to pick me up from my place, but then thought it would be better if I took public transportation. I took a bus quite a ways out, and he picked me up at the bus station. He honked the horn when he pulled up to the bus station. I climbed into car, and as with most of my romantic encounters, felt a wave of regret.

…

“Do you like your wine?” he asks.

“Yeah, it’s nice,” I say lamely.

He sipped at it, making small smacking noises with his mouth. “Tastes like Beringer’s. Kinda dry. Sutter Home is sweeter.”

…

We tried several attempts at conversation, but I found themto be unsuccessful. For instance, he unveiled his brilliant theory that NONE of us are actually American, because we’re not Cherokee, or Navajo and they’re the only REAL Americans, the rest of us are from somewhere else. “So none of us are actually American,” he concluded, citing several TV shows he’d watched on the subject. Then he ended triumphantly: “See? I didn’t need to go to college to be smart.”

At the end of dinner he suggested we go to a bar for a drink. I agreed, hoping that at least I’d be out in the city somewhere where other people would be, and maybe there’d be a good band or a pool table or SOMETHING to make the night better. Where does he tell me he’s taking me?

[Applebee’s]

At this point I decide I need to reel him in. I told him that I was new to the city, and that I could go to an Applebee’s ANYWHERE. I wanted to go to cool neighborhood, IN the city, somewhere we could sit down and chill out, like a neighborhood bar. He looked at me nervously as I was saying this, dumbfounded, and then finally stuttered, “Well, we can just, you know, TRY it, and if you don’t like it we can go somewhere else.” He could not comprehend why I’d object to Applebee’s for an after-dinner drink. At 7 pm on a Saturday night.

So I went. And I was home and in bed, gratefully all alone, by 9 pm.

I’m so glad I’m married. I get the car thing and the wine thing and the Native American thing, but if I had to date again and a woman asked me to take her to a cool bar, I wouldn’t have a clue.

So here I am on a Friday night. My wife stopped at Famous Dave’s on the way home. We’re going to slip into comfortable clothes, sit down in front of the television, and pig out on BBQ while we watch Battlestar Gallactica. Because I married wisely.