Reality Dating Game Show Scenario
My ideal date began with a full day of work. That's right, work. I'm not one for having the usual prep time ogling in front of the mirror at home. Sail into the date wearing scrubs, I say. Scrubs and a grubby sweatshirt to ward off the cold. That's the way of it. That's the ideal.
And the girl didn't want flowers. She isn't interested in more flowers. She's had them in spades already. She's dried some, thrown out others, potted a few, and grown them from bulbs and bonzai trees. She has the bamboo, the shoots, and the little pebbles. Really. The gift of plant life is dead to her. She warned me in no uncertain terms that flowers are not to be involved this time around. Not again.
She also banned the following as urbane: jewelery, poems, perfumes, lotions, anything arriving in a gift basket, anything requiring electricity, and music. It's already been done in various and sundry ways.
And the ideal date would involve takeout. Would have, too, if the favorite restaurant had cooperated and not chosen this single day to focus only on their pish-posh in-house clientele. But any ideal date has to have a little hiccup along the way. And it was just a hiccup, because she decided to "throw a few things together" in the usual nonchalant fashion. As in a three course dinner made in 45 minutes from scratch, because 1½ year olds don't believe in delayed gratification when empty stomachs are involved. I just sat and pretended to put my daughter to sleep over and over again like it was an aerobic sport. I can't begin to describe the grilled shrimp with the garlic intangibles, the clever little tofu and mushroom concoction, or even reimagine the soup, but it was good. So was the Shiraz. Good thing that was just lying around. Didn't even have to run out for it.
The best part so far was after my daughter's bath, when my date had just finished reading our daughter's second bedtime story. The first story is always this one about the very diligent spider, or something. Which is cool, because my daughter can actually say spider in Mandarin. Which took me about 30 years to do. Exactly. But back to the best part so far. It was when she hugged our daughter while she was giggling and looked over at me to say, "See? Isn't this better than some stupid flowers and a restaurant?"
And she was right. Of course, that's not all of the date. Just some of the good parts.