Recently, however, despite our very best efforts, DateNight has gotten the shaft. Actually that is not entirely true, because when we were presented with the Wonder and Glory that is Christmas Break, we went out two or three nights per week. During the school year, however, such activities have gotten to be well-nigh impossible. Every single week is a dead sprint to Friday and the concomitant kid homework reprieve, and by the time the weekend actually arrives we’re usually so blitzed that we don’t do much of anything ... y’know, the classic case of life getting in the way of Life.
This past weekend, however, we did manage to carve out a couple of hours for ourselves. We stuck Reagan with the other three kids (every one of our sitters pretended NOT to have gotten their email summons), went to our (OK, my) favorite Thai place in town, sat there for over an hour doing things that you absolutely ALWAYS do (and take for granted) when you’re dating or at least childless, but that you NEVER do after you have kids ... things like actually chewing your food and taking the time to see what it tastes like instead of (a) bypassing your teeth and taste buds entirely so that you can minimize the arguments at the table; (b) pre-emptively giving the credit card to the waitress BEFORE she brings the ticket (thereby saving at least 3-4 precious minutes); and (c) rushing everybody back into the van so that you aren’t late for whatever is next on the list. No, on this particular night we did things right. We sat. We chewed. We tasted. We sat some more. We talked about things that were NOT related to homework or other kid activities. It was glorious.
And then we went to the grocery.
If you are 20-something, you can’t fully understand the appeal of “going to the grocery”. You THINK you can, because you think you’re all grown up and everything when you’re 20-something. But you aren’t. So you don’t. And I will allow that “going to the grocery” in the manner in which I usually do it (on an almost daily basis) is far from noteworthy. But when you are married with kids and are at the tail end of your date, going to the grocery is, indeed, special. For one thing, you’re much less likely to buy ordinary stuff like bread and bananas and nutty bars. When you are flying solo (or duo, as it were), you might take a trip down the bulk candy aisle and buy something new and dangerous. Or maybe you might stroll over and see just what all of those hundreds of varieties of cheese really have to offer. But the primary draw of the DateNight grocery trip, of course, is the fact that it provides a perfectly defensible excuse for staying away from the house for another 20 minutes. In our case, the can’t-possibly-do-without-them items were a couple gallons of milk (dull, admittedly) and an assortment of champagne and chocolates. Items secured, we finished our business and headed home.
What, pray tell, does this have to do with the title of today’s blog entry? Well, there are times when it would be obvious to most anyone that you’ve married the right woman. When the pastor says something completely innocuous, yet by that strange, stream-of-consciousness ChurchMind process you end up barely stifling a laugh and simultaneously realize that your wife is red-faced and shaking the entire pew ... when this happens, you probably have married the right woman. When you’re sitting around with friends or family, laughing and talking about stuff, and you think of something that you know your wife will find hysterical, and you intentionally choose to deliver the goods only when your ninja powers have detected that critical juncture where the beverage has left her glass but most definitely HAS NOT been swallowed -- the result, of course, being 10 seconds of sheer bliss while you wait to see whether she can actually manage to (a) rally the troops and get it down or (b) spew it (via either mouth or nose) across the table ... when this happens and your wife thinks you are funny (this being the critical part, obviously), you have married the right woman. And finally, when you are walking into the grocery with each other, basking in the afterglow of a non-rushed, real-live adult meal, and your wife looks up at you with her eyes twinkling and says with a chuckle, “Y’know honey, recycling is just not sexy” ... when this happens and you are GLAD that she both (a) genuinely feels that way and (b) is totally cool with calling you out on the cloth bags that you took from the trunk of the car and are now carrying into the store, you have married the right woman.
Now don’t get me wrong. I have a number of female friends who are hippie / Earth-First / granola types and who still manage to be Completely Awesome. One of them is in New Zealand right now, working for some wacko all-organic farm co-op something-or-other program. Another lives in a very cool, highly respectable Nashville neighborhood, yet has a compost pile in her backyard that blocks out the sun. And there are others. You know who you are, and you know that I think you are all fabulous. But when it comes right down to it, I’ve gotta say that I’m glad I managed to hook up with someone whose attitude basically is, “You know those ridiculous bins in the garage for plastic, glass, aluminum, and newspaper? The ones that those whiny, milquetoast, Birkenstock-wearing pretend-a-men use? Well, I pretty much think you’re nuts for taking the time to do that but I’m so crazy about you that I’m not going to count off for it.” To me, there is something undeniably hot about that, in a north Dallas (or something ... can’t quite put my finger on it) sort of way.
So yes, I married the right woman. And I have confirmation that she believes she married the right man. And if we can just manage to survive this week, Friday evening is likely to find us doing the usual -- and bringing home the post-dinner, post-movie, grocery store spoils in decidely non-sexy bags.
Peace,
Mike
