How NOT to Spend a Valentine's Day Date


The worst Valentine's Day outing of my life -- 1999

How NOT to Spend a Valentine’s Day Date

The year 1999 was the worst Valentines "date" I ever had. At the time I had been married over 15 years, so you'd think my husband would have had a clue. No such luck.

Valentine's Day that year was mid-week, but since our kids were 8, 6 1/2, and almost 5 years old at the time and we needed a babysitter, we decided to wait for the weekend to go out. Our theory was that since it was after the big day, places would be a little less crowded. It was a lousy theory.

That weekend arrived and my husband announced that he had made no reservations anywhere. I scowled and muttered that I guessed it would be OK to attend the hockey game, since we had not gone to one yet that season, but that he ought to get himself to the grocery store courtesy counter and make sure we had tickets. I like hockey, but a $6 bratwurst and watching guys bash each other for three hours is not my idea of a romantic evening.

Saturday evening we got the babysitter settled and started on our way. In the car I said, "So, did you go get tickets?" and he said, "No, we'll just get them at the box office." It's a good thing he had the heat on in the car, otherwise you could have seen the steam coming off my head.

We got to the hockey arena and the parking areas were full. We ended up in a garage at least 6 blocks away. I am not a wimp, walking does not faze me, but I had broken my left foot two weeks before Christmas. Six weeks in a cast had left me with limited mobility in that ankle. I was moving, as the Trekkies say, at "one-quarter impulse speed". I limped in the cold and dark for half a mile, repeatedly requesting that my husband s-l-o-w d-o-w-n! We got to the arena to find that the game was SOLD OUT. There were single seats in the nosebleed sections. My husband reluctantly admitted that maybe that was not the way to spend a rare evening out together.

Back in the 1980s, developers had converted the neglected but once-beautiful train station and shed (Union Station) into a mall and hotel, a tourist destination. We had not been there since before 1991, but because it was only four blocks further and held the promise of food, I agreed to walk there for dinner. Alas, one of the reasons for the congestion in the parking lots was that Mardi Gras was the following Tuesday. Where did all those outdoor revelers head when it got cold and dark and they wanted food and to party somewhere warm? North to downtown. Where was the first place they hit on their way north? Union Station. Waiting time for a table at any of the restaurants was two hours. The "food court" there was filthy, and I was still holding out for something like a romantic Valentine’s Day meal. Hungry, cold, tired, and too mad for words, I limped nearly a mile back to the car.

Since half the joy of having a babysitter was not putting the kids to bed myself, I refused to go home. We ended up at another mall, where we ate at the food court because we still couldn’t get a table at a restaurant. While I was admiring something at one of the stores, my husband announced that I should get it, since he had not bought me a Valentine's Day gift, either.

I'm afraid I did not speak to the man again until the following Monday evening.

Posted: Sun - January 9, 2005 at 10:22 PM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

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