Quirky Chrissy asked me to guest post today. All I could think to write about was a few of the bad dates I’d had in my twenties. This is me without enough coffee, obviously. Then, of course, I had to illustrate my adventures with crayons. That’s what happens when you become a parent. You have to do everything with crayons. I mean, your kids steal all of the pens and hide them so they can write on the wall when you aren’t looking. At least, that is what happens at my house.
When I was young I wasn’t much of a dater (Wait, is that even a word? I’m guest posting on the grammar Queen’s blog. It’s making me so nervous about punctuation and poorly chosen words). I was more of a serial monogamist. I had boyfriends, not dates. There was a short, awkward period, in my twenties, where I did actually try to date, but it didn’t exactly go so well. Usually, I’d just get nervous and say something embarrassing. Like this:
Sometimes, I’d trip, or fall, or spill my drink all over the table and my date. In my defense, that one time when I did spill my drink, my date was totally looking way too hard at the waitresses cleavage. It’s not entirely my fault that Karma paid him a visit immediately. I mean, that just happens sometimes.
Dating has never been easy for me and now that I am married, it still isn’t. All of the self-help relationship books say husbands and wives need date nights to keep the spark alive. My husband and I try to do this, but because we haven’t found a reliable babysitter we often have to take our toddler with us. Whether or not a date, accompanied by a toddler, is actually a date, is debatable, but we are desperate (How many commas do I need here? Seriously, I don’t even know…). We take what we can get. We go on dates with our toddler. All. The. Time.
Last St. Patrick’s Day, we drove an hour to a fancy restaurant and bar that promised food, green martinis, and dart championship games. When we got there the restaurant was closed and the bar didn’t have food. Plus, it’s weird to bring a toddler into a bar. I mean, everyone stops talking and sort of stares at you. It’s awkward. We were annoyed by the restaurants false advertising. We were also all really, really hungry. So, we got back in the car and headed towards the last restaurant we had passed on our 60 mile drive. Before we could get there, our daughter started crying and saying her tummy hurt. I figured she was probably just hungry. We all were. We were all getting a little cranky too. Unfortunately, I was terribly wrong. She wasn’t just hungry. She was sick. The vomiting started and would not stop. We pulled over on the side of the road. I tried to clean her up. We had vomit all over. It was kind of a disaster. We were all wearing green, looking miserable and smelling like vomit all the way home.
Last St. Patrick’s Day was probably my worst bad date ever. Between the restaurant being closed, the cranky husband, the cranky toddler and the ode to vomit perfume (not to mention we ended up having spaghetti for dinner) it was spectacular in all the wrong ways. Still, at least I didn’t have to worry about getting a second date. I mean, we sealed that deal years ago. Thank God. Now we can just call bad dates life.
25 Responses
This is classic: “Now we can just call bad dates life.” Thanks for making me smile.
It gives it a new perspective, right? My poor husband is stuck with me now!
Spot on. Lily’s great at making me smile too. 🙂
SO funny!!!
Thanks, Kelly!
Hey, guys do this too! Especially when “the cleavage” catches their eye. We’re just wired this way 😉 As I learned in the army, “no apologies mam!”
As long as you don’t mind having an entire drink knocked in your lap I suppose all is fair in love and war.
LOL. Loving the image I’m getting from this.
Funny! Hope you can find a babysitter so you two can have time alone too. To answer your question, just one comma before but because they are two sentences separated by a conjunction 🙂
Conjunction junction, what’s your function? It’s all algebra to me…sigh.
Schoolhouse Rocks!!
OMG! Lily!! Too funny. Ugh. dating was the worst. On one of my first dinners out with my current husband he made me laugh so hard I shot food out of my nose. However, I think that was the moment we knew we would be married.
Any man that makes you laugh that hard is definitely marriage material. You guys sound like so much fun. I wish we lived closer together.
Remind me to write a blog post about all of the things that have come out of my nose.
You’re so funny. I’ve made the “super salad” mistake before, but I’m guilty of mishearing people all the time.
Really?! That makes me so happy. I am so glad I am not the only person who has done this.
This. Is. Awesome. I’m not going to lie…Things like this may or may not happen to me somewhat regularly…
Super Salad. Awesome. I’m guessing the only reason I’ve never made this mistake is because in my mind there is no such thing as a super salad. Super Nachos? Absolutely. I love your drawings and can totally relate to the misery of taking a toddler on ‘dates.’ We wouldn’t get out if we didn’t try that every once in a while.
Y’all need a good quality babysitter willing to work for a few peanuts and some quality time with your TV and the snacks in your fridge.
Lillian! Been there. Gah, all the shitty first and only dates. The dates that became subsequent dates and they should’ve been cancelled after the first date. The drawing was a new side to you; i love it.
Me too…bad dates galore! Lily’s so fun, isn’t she?
lily is amazing. you’re pretty special yourself. : )
Lily, I love the drawings. And the stories. If I lived closer, I’d totally take Tiny Small out for pizza and video games so you and Jim could have a night alone.
Thank you so much for posting on my blog this week. You are an amazing blog friend. I’m lucky to know you!
Sounded like quite an adventure there. Yeah I would say that they had a little false advertising going on in that flyer……
Seriously. Bad bar. Bad bad bar.