Sunday, September 6, 2009

Date Night, or You'll Never Believe How Stupid My Husband Thinks I Am

On Saturday night Jason and I got the idea of having a nice seafood/sushi dinner at Skipjack's, so we dropped the kids for a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house and headed over to Patriot Place in Foxboro. Man, is that place user-unfriendly! They have shops and restaurants galore, but navigating your way through that parking lot is a challenge for even the most brilliant minds. So we parked in the waaay-wrong place (next to a parking space with a pool of big, chunky vomit in it - ah, romance!) and walked all around, trying to find the way into the large building with the Skipjack's logo on it. We walked this way, and then back that way, and then back this way again, and I was getting crankier and crankier by the minute.

We noticed animal poop all over the sidewalks and imagined what kind of animal was there at the luxury shopping and dining center taking a crap everywhere. "Disgruntled customers?" I wondered.

Finally, we found our way to a large (and I mean large as in, halfway up you are gasping for air as the outdoor-terrace diners at CBS Scene snigger at you) stairway that led to the restaurant. We walked in, giddy with hunger and relief, and put our names in for a table. The wait was going to be about 40 minutes, so we headed over to the bar. Because it was a busy Saturday night, there were no seats, and we ended up doing that awkward, creepy hover behind some other patrons who had been fortunate enough to snag chairs.

About halfway through my Oktoberfest, I noticed the hostess ushering a couple away from the bar to their table. I nudged Jason excitedly and bossed, "Go! Go! There are seats opening up over there!" He didn't move, murmuring something about waiting to get his change from the bartender. I was flabbergasted. I wanted to give him a huge shove and yell, "MOVE! GO! NOW! WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU? WHY AREN'T YOU MOVING?" but I worried that such an outburst might be considered gauche. Instead, I shoved past him and made my way toward those seats as fast as I could.

Just as I got there, of course, an elderly couple had edged me out. I stomped back over to Jason, fuming that his hesitation had cost us those seats. Didn't he realize that I was carrying a 35-pound bag on my shoulder? (No, we hadn't done any shopping beforehand - it was just my giant mom-purse, filled with diapers and wipes and snacks and magazines and Kleenex packets and bug spray and ChapStick and maxi pads.) I was so annoyed that he actually noticed that I was annoyed. He bravely asked, "What's wrong?" and I whined, "I wanted to go sit down, but you wouldn't move, and now we've missed out, and now we'll never get a seat." I was making a pouty face, and I may have even stamped my foot. He kind of shrugged and looked back at the baseball game on the TV.

And then, gasp! Two more seats opened up, and again, I nudged Jason to start walking so that I could deposit my 50-pound bag on the back of a chair and sit down like a regular paying customer instead of doing the vagrant-hover near the end of the bar. And again, he wouldn't budge. I started to sputter, mind blown that he wouldn't start walking. He looked uncomfortable and said quietly in a patient teacher voice, "There's a managed queue." It took me a few minutes to process what he was talking about, and then it dawned on me.

He thought that I was trying to grab seats at a table. That was used for dining. That people, including us, were on a waiting list for.

Take a minute to absorb it.

This is what my husband thinks of me after 8 years of marriage. It's one of two things, and I'm not sure which one I'm routing for. Maybe he thinks that I am really stupid and I thought the hostess was just asking our name to be super-friendly, and that she wrote it down on that paper because she's so bad at remembering the names of new friends she meets. Or maybe he thinks that I am really rude and that I was just going to jump into a booth, giggling conspiritorially with him as I flipped off the hostess and customers waiting in line to put their names in. (In that case, he must have thought I was showing great restraint by sipping my beer from a glass rather than just hopping over the bar and sucking Sam Adams right from the tap.)

Once I explained that I am, in fact, both aware and respectful of restaurant seating law, we had a good laugh over that one. While we were sitting in those bar seats I nabbed for us.

3 comments:

  1. I like how your bag's mass increased as the amount of time you were waiting increased.

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  2. Thanks, Switz! It's funny you mentioned that particular point because when I woke up this morning, I swear the first thing I thought was that I had meant to mention the bag one more time, with it weighing even more, toward the very end. I worried that because I only increased the weight once, people would think I was just sloppy and just didn't match up my numbers rather than the appreciating that I had done it on purpose. I guess that means I pulled a Jason on y'all, didn't I? Should have given you more credit.

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  3. "...jump into a booth, giggling conspiritorially with him as I flipped off the hostess and customers waiting in line..."

    hilarious :) loved it ... another brilliant one!

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