We’re married. Our schedules are hectic. Evenings are little
more than a quick family dinner and maybe a half-episode on Netflix before we’re
both nodding off. So we set aside a
night to DO something, have some fun, go on a Date. I crafted a foolproof plan:
we’d shoot some guns, eat some seafood, get a hotel. Perfect!
Before Date Night got started, I met some friends for coffee at a downtown Starbucks. The parking lot was packed but I found a spot in the very back.
The conversation and coffee were lovely; I hated to leave, but Date Night started in 30 minutes and I still had to drive a long way during rush hour. I hastily said my goodbyes then jogged to my car where a parking boot had been lovingly placed around my front tire.
An urgent phone call to the number conveniently pasted to my window roused the man sitting in a pickup right next to me to lumber out and charge me a breathtaking fee to remove the boot. Pointing to a tiny sign mostly covered by foliage - parking for main key building only - he told me the parking lot for Starbucks actually only comprised 10 slots out of the nearly 200 in the lot, the rest belonged to a squat, unlabeled office building on the other end, the main key (no caps) building. He spent his days sitting in the lot with a truck bed full of boots happily immobilizing hapless coffee patrons and making an absolute fortune for the owners of the main key building. It was a scheme so stunning in its audacity I couldn't even get mad. Using strip mall logic I'd assumed that the main key building was a euphemism for the anchor building, or the biggest moneymaker in the strip, which - duh - would be Starbucks. Whatever, I had to go.
Bootless, I dodged the driving dead across town to get Date Night underway. We rendezvoused at a shooting range near her work with anticipation of numb palms, spent brass, gunpowder residue, and
cordite. The young instructor asked how
much experience we’d had.
“Not
much… I shot some in basic training!” I added hopefully. Twenty
years ago, I thought.
“What’d
you shoot?”
“Beretta”
I said proudly.
He handed
me a Beretta M9 and challenged me to click off the safety and remove the
clip. I turned it over in my hand a few
times, gently poked at some levers and knobs with no result and quietly handed
it back to him. He then demanded my
manhood card and tore it up, letting the pieces fall to the floor. No, not really, it just felt like it.
“I can’t
let you on the range, you’d be dangerous” he said. “Come back next week, I’ll
train you for a couple hours, then we’ll see - only cost you $100.”
No way, I thought, I’m not paying for some condescending, snot-nosed redneck to chuckle
with his buddies over my forgotten firearm skills. I have a Sharpshooter pin,
dammit!
“Ha ha,
sure, sounds good! See you next week!” I said handing him the money
and scuttling out the door in a fog of shame.
I had a
restaurant gift card from last Christmas good for multiple eateries but the
closest one was Red Lobster, just a couple miles away. I’ll
drown my shame in tartar sauce! I thought gleefully. The two mile drive took 40 minutes, thanks to the traffic. Red Lobster – never the
first choice of discriminating diners – was practically deserted. For the
evening rush. Not a promising harbinger.
At the reception desk we saw a
sign stating “As of August, only gift cards specifically for Red Lobster
will be accepted. Sorry for any inconvenience but as you can
see by the empty booths we’re nearly out of business and we need you suckers to
pay full price to keep our one bored cook from being deported.”
No, it didn’t really say
that last part, but it felt like it.
After consulting with two layers of management the hostess grudgingly
agreed to accept my gift card because there was,
after all, the name of their restaurant on it, among other stellar standouts
such as the Sagebrush Saloon and the Olive Garden.
Our
main courses arrived approximately 36 seconds after our appetizer – bored cook – and it was all forgettable,
then regrettable, when the unmistakable signs of food poisoning arrived the following
day. We did enjoy the ice water, which
was refilled in a never-ending stream by our extremely attentive – probably also bored – waiter, Cody. His enthusiasm for our dining pleasure
visibly waned when he saw I was paying with a gift card. Nothing says “cheap diner = lousy tip” like a gift card or coupon. I didn’t care. I was looking forward to the hotel.
On my
last job I traveled a lot, stayed mostly at Best Western and collected rewards
points – “Best Rewards Program in the
Business!” – which never expire and can be redeemed for free nights at any
Best Western. With two curious boys in a
tiny house, marital intimacy tends to be low on the priority list so I’d cashed
in some points to score a free night at the Best Western, just a mile down the
street.
We mulled our mushy fish while a man was murdered in his car - a mile down the
street. Literally, while we were eating!
“Charlotte’s 55th homicide of
2017!” the newsfeed would crow the next morning.
Of course we were ignorant of this, sheltered in the dim, vacant dining room protected by hovering presence of Cody. We were perplexed when, after departing Red
Loser, the entrance into the Best Western was blocked by two police cruisers with
flashing lights. We'd just driven by the hotel an hour before and it had been silent as a tomb.
Forced to U-turn, I thought about a 5 mile
detour to attempt the back way to the hotel, with no guarantee it would be open.
I thought about how terrible the traffic was. I thought about the emasculating debacle
at the range. I thought about the second-rate
seafood dinner. I thought about the two naïfs
freaked out about their parents staying overnight in a local hotel. I thought about how tired we both were. I thought about how my life feels like a
dead-end. I thought about how awesome it
would be to own a Tesla at the dealership I was creeping by. I thought about how that will never happen. I thought I heard my phone buzzing.
“Hey.”
“Hey.
It’s weird they have all the roads blocked off.
I wonder what happened.”
“Don’t
know. Somebody did something, I guess.”
“Crazy night.
What do you want to do? Try to go around
or just go home?”
“Let’s
go home” I said quietly relieved, “I’m an unlovable loser; too wretched to be
romantic right now, anyway; our perfect date turned into a catastrophic
trifecta, there’s no hope for me, the future looks dismal, you should get out
while you still have your health.”
No, I
didn’t really say that last part, but I felt like it.
