Saturday, February 14, 2009

Dating Disasters

Happy Valentine's Day! Eugene and I celebrated last night since we were able to get babysitting for Alex at his daycare. We went out for dinner at a local Italian restaurant. We like the place a lot, but we haven't been there since before Alex was born.

While we were enjoying some couple time, we reminisced a bit about some of our dates. One of our most memorable dates was our first Sweetest Day together. We were juniors at UW-Madison, and we had dinner at the Ovens of Brittany (now defunct) on State Street. My housefellow was our waitress. She suggested we should go for a horse-drawn carriage ride, and we happened to see a carriage outside when we left. I can't remember the driver's name anymore, but I still remember the horse's name: Bartles. We enjoyed a nice ride through misty downtown Madison, but towards the end of the ride, we overheard some odd comments on the driver's walkie-talkie. It turned out that carriage rides had to be reserved, and we had actually usurped someone else's time. Luckily everyone was very understanding. Then we learned we had to pay in cash, and Eugene didn't have enough with him. He had to leave me as security while he visited the ATM.

We've had plenty of other misadventures since then (I tipped the canoe the first and last time we went canoeing), but that was our worst experience on a date. (Perhaps it doesn't qualify as a disaster, but I adore alliteration.) Does anyone else feel brave enough to share their dating disasters?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So here's one of mine...Not exactly a dating disaster, as my husband and I were engaged...but a disaster nonetheless...

My husband and I decided to celebrate some alone time in my parents' house. We built a fire in the fireplace, but the wood was wet and smoke starting going everywhere. My parents had an elaborate alarm system, which promptly went off. I didn't know the codes so I couldn't turn it off. The fire department showed up and randomly punched buttons on the keypad to shut the alarm. This sounded a silent alarm to the police (we didn't know that at the time). I called my parents, who called the alarm company and the alarm finally stopped. The fire dept left and we thought everything was fine. It was - - - for about 10 minutes.

All of a sudden we saw lights from a car coming up the long drive. My husband went to check, only to find a few police officers, guns drawn, waiting for him.

Everything turned out OK, but it's now the running joke in the family - 21 years later.

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