Hot Date

It’s Friday night. Dinner hour.

And the cashier at the grocery store — yes, we were buying groceries on a Friday night; can I get a WOOT-WOO! — who might be all of 19 (if that) asks us, “Do you have any fun plans for the evening?”

Do we have any fun plans for the evening?

Having already put over 300 miles on my car during the day and knowing that Home is still quite a drive away (and having been awake since 4:44am and going since 5:05), I think to myself Did she really just ask us that? Can she not SEE what we are doing with our evening? We are buying groceries! And then I think, Going to bed sounds pretty damn fun right about now.

I don’t say that though. (She might take it the wrong way.)

In fact, I don’t say anything at all. Because my spouse is saying, “This is it! This is what our fun plans are! We’re on a hot date!”

Which leaves the poor girl dumbfounded.

But f’real: This is how we ‘date’.

It probably started before my husband’s kidney disease progressed to Impossible, but by the time he was in Stage 5 and on dialysis, we’d become so used to making the most of any time we spent together — going to doctor’s appointments, picking up meds, visiting the dialysis center — be intentionally FUN, that we started referring to virtually any errand or to-do drive-about as a ‘date’.

A ‘date’ during the Tough Time was also running non-medical errands like getting groceries or visiting the post office; a ‘real date’ was one during which we fit in a quick meal at a restaurant or a stop at a bookstore between all the Necessaries. And now (read: these days) a ‘hot date’ is anything from hitting a fast food drive-thru to ordering coffee at a walk-up counter.

But calling ‘grocery shopping’ a ‘hot date’ required some explaining on Friday night.

And so I tried to explain. Quickly. Succinctly.

But the poor girl was baffled.

So I just said, “When you’ve been together for 20 years, this [waving vaguely at the bags of groceries I am paying for] is what the idea of ‘going out’ on Friday nights amounts to.”

Saturday morning’s hot date will involve coffee (possibly hot, possibly not).

Because we’re just ALL KINDS OF CRAZY up in here.

*laugh*

What hot stuff are you up to this weekend, hmmm?