Friday Night

I kid you not when I tell you that I came home from vacation last week and prayed for a man in my life.  I really did.  I had just spent a week with my aunt and uncle who had been married for 40 plus years but act like they're still newlyweds.  I hold every man up to the standard of my Uncle Frank! 

So when I got a call from a guy on Wednesday who is a friend of friends (I gave him my number months ago) and he asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner I was game.  "It's a free meal," I thought.  I was trying to go into it with an open mind. 

Friday comes along, I put on one of my favorite shirts hoping that this first date will be different. I got said favorite shirt at Anthropologie.  I gave it to myself for my birthday a few years ago and I paid full price.  I never pay full price at Anthropologie.  Never!  But this shirt was perfect - a beautiful soft rose color, low cut and a big tulle flower at the V where the fabric comes back together.  This is it:

I wore it with jeans and a black blazer (don't want to look too slutty) and my denim pumps (too much info I know but it all comes together trust me).

After driving around looking for the restaurant, Maggianos, I arrived, albeit 10 minutes late (I texted to say I was lost).  I walk in and the second thing he says to me (after the hellos are out of the way) is "Oh I should have told you not to get so dressed up.  To dress casual."  It would have been nice to hear I looked nice, but we'll give him this because maybe he was nervous. 

We are seated at our table, peruse the menu, order some wine, and engage in conversation about ourselves, mutual friends, etc.  All you basic first date stuff.  We discussed what we were going to order.  I am always careful about this.  I like to ask a guy what he's going to order because I don't want to order something too expensive.  However, he was ordering something that was more than my choice, so I thought I was safe.  But when the waiter came to take our order, he changed his mind!!!!  He went for something about $5 less than me!  He did order for me though, which was nice. 

He continued to talk about his son  as I devoured my bread saturated in olive oil (I was hungry and it's never good to drink on an empty stomach).  Our soup came and the small talk continued.  Then the dinner came.  Remember, I was STARVING (did I mention I hadn't eaten since about noon when I had popcorn that I shared with two 9 year olds at Despicable Me 2?).   I picked up my fork and my spoon all ready to dig into my linguini and fish.  It smelled so good, my mouth was watering, I just couldn't wait to dig right in.  And then he said . . .

"Should we say the blessing?"

Huh? 

Now, I was raised Catholic and for the most part, I still practice my Catholicism.  Not to a tee, but I go to church most Sundays.  Growing up we only said a prayer before we ate on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.  That was it.   Now here I am in a public place and he wants to pray!?!  We had already had bread and soup - wasn't it a little bit late for that? 

We said the "Bless oh Lord . . ." prayer and ate.  We continued to talk about work, families, life, etc. as we ate (I highly recommend the linguine di mare).   The waiter came back to clear our plates, ask us if we wanted more wine and dessert. 

More wine - certainly (if he wanted another glass), dessert I could take or leave, but said that if he was getting it I would eat some (I'm so demure).  The waiter brought over new glasses of wine as we continued to talk about his karaoke parties, his son's panic attacks and why I moved to Dallas. 

Suddenly in an animated moment of his conversation he decided to talk with his hands and that's when it happened.  His glass of merlot went flying across the table!  And you guessed it, all over my favorite, full price Anthropologie blouse! 

The bus boy came over with some napkins to soak up the wine and take the offensive glass away.  He then placed napkins over the wine on the table cloth so I wouldn't have to sit there with it in front of me as I tried to blot it out of my shirt and jeans.  Meanwhile, my date just asked for another glass to replace the one that had spilled.  

He got his dessert (I had a couple of bites) and we continued to sit there for another 45 minutes - me in my wine stained shirt, with my hands on the napkins covering the wine stained table cloth and him eating the dessert.  

When we left the restaurant, he chivalrously walked me to my car -where he hugged me a little bit too tightly (it hurt my boobs) and said that he had a great time. 

The next day the woman at the dry cleaners said "Oh wed wine hawd to get out of shurt."

Wonder if there will be a second date . . .