Regular Life

The meaning of the term “date night” morphs into something wholly different than back before we had a child. Spontaneity takes on new meaning, too.

In our pre-kid (PK) days, these nights were random in nature. Sure, if we had big plans, we generally held them on an evening when neither of us worked the next day. Exceptions to that, however, could be completely spontaneous. Other friends without children wanted to go out on a Tuesday night? Sure, no problem — as long as our budget could support it. Times were a bit financially grim in our wedlock’s early years. (”Wedlock” is a funny word, because it’s the result of two people’s promise to stay wed. Following that rationale, religious factions in the middle east must be in “warlock.” Religious factions in the middle ear, however, just get stuck in the wax.)

Getting back on track here…

Shannon wasn’t feeling up to going out, due mostly to a case of mommy wornoutitis. So, with a garage spider eradication plan on tap for Sunday morning, I went to Home Depot and bought a 1.33 gallon bottle of bad-ass black widow killer spray and then picked up food at Chili’s. The pimply-faced teenager was very helpful and assured me that it would not only kill all the poisonous spiders, but would substitute for those expensive quarterly visits from the exterminator (the spray, not the Old-Timer burger). Get off me about buying dinner at Chili’s. It’s the only place besides On the Border that’s not fast-food within a 10-minute drive of our house. And don’t tell me about environmentally friendly ways to control bugs. These houses were built on cornfields, which puts us pretty far behind on getting along with nature.

We ate and watched three DVR’d episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy,” a show that is a lot like a soap opera with comedic moments and pretty good acting. We might not win creativity awards, but it was relaxing and we didn’t have to wipe anybody else’s butt or give anybody a bath or put anybody to bed (unlike the characters on the show).

After I tucked Shannon in (remember, she wasn’t feeling up to anything), I watched Slither, a very entertaining movie that I bought on DVD for $3.99 at Hollywood Video’s store closing sale. I suspected I would like it, and figured now I can pass it around to friends for the same price I could have rented it. (others I picked up: A Prairie Home Companion, The Triplets of Belleville, and Half Nelson.)

Hey, wait a minute. Kid’s asleep, wife’s away, and I have movies to watch. Why am I here typing this?

Oh, yes, now I remember. Date night and black widows.

I sleep in all the way to 9:40 Sunday and then, with the help of my recovering wife, shift things in the garage around enough to sweep every square inch and line the perimeter with a four-inch swath of the aforementioned take no prisoners poison.

To my surprise and almost my dismay, we find no black widows. I had found and killed one in the garage (got a positive ID) last week and figured the place would be infested like those drain pipes in the back yard’s retaining wall. I had been looking forward to pretending I was John Goodman in Arachnophobia.

On a positive note, at some point Shannon went to fetch Benjamin from her mom, and while playing on the sidewalk back here at home he flagged down a young mother and her boy only six months his junior. We would have just waved and watched them go by, but Benjamin tends to blurt out a friendly “Hello” to anyone he sees on the street, and then proceeds to tell them everything short of his social security number (but probably only because he doesn’t know it yet). The mother had recently quit work to stay home with her two children (one just a baby) and was looking for ways to provide her pre-schooler a social life. As luck would have it, I said, my wife is the organizer for a local mom’s club. Shannon gave her more information and off she went.

Thanks to Benjamin, our weekend included a little randomness and spontaneity.

OK, I’m out now. I have a date with three elderly French jazz-era divas.

(Geeky note: “cast aspersions” got 200,000 hits on Google, while “cast dispersions” got 9,850 hits. So, that means that about 4.7% of the attempts to use this phrase on the Internet are wrong. Unless they’re really casting dispersions, in which case they are, indeed, some type of warlock.)

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