Smug Marrieds: Date Night

Blair has been working late all week and spent most of Saturday cooped up in his office, so I suggested we go see The Rocky Horror Picture Show at The Carolina Theatre for a little escape. He agreed and date night was set. 

It's been awhile since we've gone on a date. We both are pretty much homebodies, happy to curl up on the couch and watch a movie. And apparently "dating" isn't like riding a bike. You do forget--or perhaps ignore--some of the niceties that made you want to date the person in the first place. 

For example, I'd spent the morning running and then come home and cleaned the house. I'd showered and was was in my robe on the coach at about 5pm, reading. Blair came jogging downstairs. 

"You almost ready?" he asked. 

"Showtime isn't until 9," I said.

"I know, but I have some errands to run and I thought we'd eat dinner out."

"I didn't know that. I thought we were eating dinner in." 

"Well, we're not. So are you almost ready?" 

"Do I look almost ready?" I asked. I cast my eye on him. "What about you? You're not wearing that?"

"I'm going to change jeans."

"And shirts," I said.

Somehow I don't remember this playful banter from our dating stage... Yet it continued as we moved into the bedroom to change.

I pulled out a sweater to wear that had horizontal strips. As I put it on, Blair was pulling on a top with horizontal stripes. 

"Wrong," I said. "We look like yuppie matching bumblebees." 

"I'll change," said Blair. He grabbed another top. 

"Not that one," I said. 

He heaved a sigh that said he was annoyed with me but was trying not to come across like he was annoyed with me. "You know, they say date night should be a spontaneous thing," he pointed out. 

"Well, 'they' are not married to me," I said. "All the sadder for them." 

We finally managed to dress and leave the house. "Which car?" I asked as we walked down the drive. It was cold outside

"Mine," said Blair, pointing at the Camry. 

"I see, the one without the heated seats," I teased. 

"They're called cloth seats," said Blair, opening the car door for me and helping me inside. "And you need to set your ass down on them." 

Rough start aside, we had fun. Dinner and beer at MCoul's Pub and then the show. I've seen the show many times, but never in a theatre, so I got the full RHPC treatment. I loved the costumes people wore. (To the dude who wore the dead-on Dr. Frank-N-Furtor costume, my admiration. You have to know who you are to go out in a costume like that.) I've never laughed so much during a movie as the old hands in the audience called out all the lead-in lines. They also played Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video before the movie, and one young kid got onstage and did the entire zombie dance along with the video. 

The point? It never hurts to leave the house now and again on date night.