Last night was my wife’s birthday. Obviously, shuttling the kids has to be taken into consideration when planning how to celebrate with her. Oh, and the fact I had not bought her gift yet (yes, I’m a man and that’s how we do). I had a half hour between getting off work and when I had to pick up my oldest. Plennnnnty of time. I scooped up the gift, no problems. Even had time to get one that could be used as the kids’ gift (something wrong with that, but that’s for another day). After I drop off my oldest daughter at dance, I sit in the parking lot and work out dinner reservations while I wait for my wife to arrive.
- First hit Zagat rated restaurants on my car’s GPS
- At the same time, pull up Open Table on the phone
- Get a couple of cross references from both that are nearby, and fit the food type
- Open Yelp and check it out there as well, check reviews with Yelp and Open Table
- Triangulate to the ‘winner’, book the reservation using Open Table, and have directions ready to go.
How did we ever function before all of this wonderful technology. But, I digress, back to the story.
We are finally on our way to dinner. Of course my conservative reservation time was turning into not so conservative given the glorious DC area traffic. We get to the restaurant with maybe a minute to spare. Although, since it’s a weekday, probably didn’t even need the reservation. But, this is a special occasion so I can be a bad ass when I walk in and slyly say, ‘Reservation for Stephens’. Oh, they have ‘complimentary’ valet…and valet only. Good thing and bad thing. Good thing is I don’t have to park and walk, which would take time. And it was probably -20 wind chill. We pull up to the valet, and my wife tells me she has two boxes of Popsicles in a bag by her feet (that’s the bad thing). What?! Well, there’s no way those suckers are staying in my car, just to melt and mess up my interior. I had two options – Leave them in the car and hope they stay frozen enough, or when I park, I could put them outside next to the car in the -20 wind chill and that should keep them popping. Did I mention they valet? Yeah, so my plans were quickly dashed. I tried to ask the valet to implement plan B and put them outside the car. To which I got a blank stare. I ended up abandoning that idea as the valet continued to try to comprehend my lunacy. Long story short, Popsicles went in the trash and I heard quite a bit about them the rest of the night.
Now we’re at dinner. I get the lobster fettuccine, which includes quite a bit of liquid, almost to the point of being lobster fettuccine SOUP. As I’m eating, I slowly realize my shirt is taking damage. I look down and notice a spot here and there from the wicked action I’m putting on the noodles. You know, the turning and turning, whipping them up into a nice lil wound ball that you can eat. I realize I’ve incurred quite a bit of soup on my shirt, still manageable though. Then, probably the last bite, a big chuck of lobster falls into the bowl and now I have lobster shrapnel all over my (of course) white dress shirt. At least I’m with my wife and it really doesn’t matter. Imagine if it was a first date…sheesh I’ve been out of the game so long I’d be a date nightmare. Can’t take me anywhere.
Next, we leave the restaurant. Pick up the car from the valet and drive off looking at the Popsicles on the top of the trash in the valet’s office. While my wife of course points out the fact that she can see ‘her’ Popsicles. We get back to the dance studio, she gets in her car and heads home while I have to wait for my daughters to finish dance. I take the extra time and head over to the grocery store and get one of those nifty Tide sticks for my embarrassing shirt. As I’m walking in, I check for my phone. Left it in the car. Oh well, I’m just running in really quick. I get back to the car, and of course she’s called multiple times and sent a few texts. Isn’t that always the case? I get in touch with her and find out that her car was acting up and she parked it in a parking lot.
I head out to go pick her up. Now having maybe 30 minutes to get to her, then back to the girls at dance in time. I’m in full rescue mode. As I’m driving, she’s texting me that she can’t get the car to move now. She puts it in gear, but nothing happens. I think she’s crazy and I’ll be able to make it happen when I get there. I pull up, hop out, get in the driver’s seat, put it into gear….nothing. After a few tries, I figure out it just isn’t going to move. As we were doing this the car naturally rolled back just a nudge and was kind of in front of a stop sign in the parking lot. Nothing too extreme. After moving half of the house from her car to mine I decide the proper thing would be to move the car up a lil bit. Did I mention we can see our auto repair shop right across the street from us? It’s a major street and not exactly easy to get to, but we had a visual on the shop. Salt in the wounds.
I tell her to get in the driver’s seat of her truck, put it in neutral and cover the break. I’m going to push it forward a little bit so it’s in the parking spot fully. Remember, I’m a bad ass (at least with reservations). I get in position, hands on the car, feet behind me. I’ve been doing the Insanity workout so I’m READY for this. Pssshaw, I can push a truck forward a foot. Guys pull planes right? I start pushing, nothing. I switch my stance, throw my strong foot back for extra leverage and give it a little extra ooomph. This is where it goes wrong. Remember the heading to this story, and remember my lobster stained shirt. Yes, I’m still in my work clothes and wearing dress shoes. They don’t exactly have traction. So, I’m trying to push what’s probably a 3000lb truck with dress shoes! And one other thing that comes into the equation and really messes up my plan. The ground was wet! Of course, I didn’t realize this until both my feet started sliding straight back. It was one of those out of body experiences where it seems to take a reallllly long time to execute. I was sliding and really couldn’t recover. My body was probably horizontal at that point. Then BAM, hands smack the ground and I’m in full layout position. Of course I hop up as fast as possible in case anyone saw it. For all I know, I’m going viral right now on YouTube. ‘Clown tries to push SUV in dress shoes’. I get up, tend to some minor bleeding, hop in my car and say ‘it’s fine where it is’.
So, what are the 2 things not to do in dress shoes? One, don’t attempt to push an SUV. Two, DEFINITELY don’t do it on wet pavement.
She did say she had a great time even if her date was a messy eater.
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