Dinner And A Movie

Who ever thought it could be so hard just to go out for dinner and a movie?

The first obstacle came in the form of car trouble. 95 percent of the time, our car starts just fine. But one time in twenty, you turn the key and nothing happens. Nothing. No flickering lights, no clicking, no wheezing. I can always push start it to get it going, so I haven't found it to be a terrible nuisance. R is of a different opinion, especially since she had it happen to her twice this week. Petite pregnant ladies really shouldn't be trying to push-start their cars all alone, so she tries to make sure she parks on a hill.

She finally prevailed on me to get the car looked at (I poked around under the hood with a screwdriver but it didn't seem to fix the problem). I dropped it off Friday morning, but they said they probably couldn't look at it right away. We only have one car, so I knew I'd have to come back for the car at the end of the day, whether they'd fixed it or not. I was worried we were going to miss our night on the town. When I went to pick the car up, they said they'd found the problem -- someone had been poking around under the hood with a screwdriver. I told them I'd bring it back on Monday and they could keep looking for the real problem.

I left work late and I had to ride my bike to the shop to get the car, so we were going to be late for our intended movie. I was pretty unhappy about how things were going. In fact, I was sulking. You can ask R -- I was a full-fledged crybaby. We ended up picking a different movie that we'd never heard of ("The Prestige"), because it was playing later.

When we left the house I realized I had taken my car key off my keyring to give to the mechanics, so I went back in the house and grabbed it. When I was halfway back out to the car, I realized I didn't have the key anymore. R got a flashlight and helped me look in the grass and the bushes. Twenty minutes later, when I was ready to give up, we finally found it nestled in the pine needles.

We had looked up the general location of the restaurant, but I hadn't written down the exact address. I thought I could find it easily. After circling the block several times, we finally stopped at a gas station for directions. It was just a little farther down the road. When we finally got there, it had taken us more than an hour to get from our front door to this restaurant -- a trip that should take 10 minutes. Then the place was so packed that we had to wait 30 minutes to get in. R was a good sport all along, but I continued to sulk. I think I was hungry.

Dinner was great and we made it to our movie with lots of time to spare. I was very, very pleasantly suprised at how much I liked the movie. It was quite different from most films, and completely unexpected. All we knew about it was the title and the names of some of the actors. It was a little intense at times, but I think I can recommend it. I couldn't stop talking about how much I liked it. That's the great thing about going to a movie with no expectations.

Well, the sour mood didn't last long. It was a great evening, and I have to give credit to R for being so patient and upbeat during my dramatics. You're a doll.

Go see "The Prestige". But bring a map ... and make sure you keep close track of your keys.