Date Night

Ahhhh---remember the days when you and your hubby (or SO) would spontaneously decide to go out for drinks and dinner, and maybe catch a movie?  At, oh, say--9:00 at night?

Cold drinks in a smoky bar with jazz or blues in the background?

Fusion food or sushi in a cool restaurant with rooftop seating?

A movie that had subtitles, or at the very least, was in a quaint artsy cinema that only showed late night movies?

Yeah, me neither...

These days, date nights are few and far between.  And, when we do get out (every few months or so), it's usually for discount happy hour drinks and appetizers (hey, they're cheaper than dinner and you get variety!) and a matinee movie.

Why?

Well, partly because MacGyver and I are total cheapskates and hate to "waste" money on dinners and movies when I can just as easily make dinner and watch On-Demand.   Or DVR'ed movies.  Or Net-Flix.  If we could even stay still (hey--I've got laundry folding to do!) or even agree on the show (aliens?  UFOs?  Big Foot?  Really????)

And, because our "babysitters" are my parents, and I hate asking them for help constantly.  Not that it really is "constantly", but it feels that way.

Then, there's the whole "I guess I need to shave my legs and find clean clothes that fit" conundrum.  I hate spending money on my own clothes since I'm convinced that my current body is just temporary.  I still consider it "baby weight", even though my "baby" is five years old, and this special extra padding is only three years old.  Yep, do the math.  This small problem is actually not the Wild Man's fault.  Anywho, unless Ann Taylor Loft has some lovely, dirt cheap, yet cute, clothes whose sizes are mysteriously missing the first "one" digit, I'm not buying a darn thing.  And really, at this point in my life I'm still usually covered in kiddie-boogers, boob stains, and applesauce.  So, what's the point of spending more than $20 on jeans or $5 on t-shirts when they'll just be destroyed in a month or so.  Now, MacGyver doesn't have this problem.  Lucky bastard still weighs and looks the same as he did in college, when we met.  He still rocks his H&M jeans and Hugo Boss polos.  Last time I checked, he did not have a boob stain on his shirt, or applesauce on his chinos.  I guess I could blame it on the fact that he gets to go to work each day (before the kiddos are up, and looking to wipe their hands or faces on someone or something) and therefore has fewer hours of munchkin time to get dirty.  But really, I suspect he's just far more hygienic than me.

And finally--it would require both of us to stay up past 9:00 pm.  Oh, for crying out loud--who are we kidding??!!  We're lucky if one, or both, of us aren't snoring in front of the TV by 8:30.  And, no--I'm not exaggerating one bit.  The idea of watching a movie at an actual movie theater where the show doesn't end until 10:30 and there's no chores to do during the "boring" parts makes me almost break out in hives.  Plus, what if we don't like the movie?  It's a lot easier to blow off a video you spend $1.99 on at Red Box than a new release you spent $25 or $30 on (before popcorn, Junior Mints, and soda) to sit in a theater with hundreds of people crunching away on their snacks, checking their texts and Face Book, and whispering back and forth.  And that's before you realize you have your head on a chair that's had thousands of people resting on it, so I start to itch just imagining lice....

No, I'm not neurotic....

But, books and tv shows and therapists and other parents tell us how important "Date Night" is to a relationship.  That we need our time together, away from children and responsibilities.  That we need to be a couple.  And not a couple of looney-toons because the only time we've spent alone in the last week was when we were asleep.  Or, in the car commuting to work.

So, this coming weekend, MacGyver and I are going out.  To a movie.  And dinner.  Not in that order, since I'm still too cheap to pay full price for a dinner and drinks (and this date is my treat).  So it will be the two of us with the AARP crowd getting our early-bird specials and then buying movie tickets with my discount movie passes.  We will certainly be home before 10:00, and I'll probably still be giddy from my 1 1/2 happy hour drinks that I had 3 hours before (what can I say--I'm a cheap date.)  But, we'll be able to see a movie that is not made by Disney or Pixar, and we'll eat a dinner that didn't involve mac-n-cheese or tuna casserole.  And, it may be fun enough that we make it a resolution to date each other at least once a month.  I hope.