Hold the Water, Waiter.

My husband hates ordering water when we go out to a restaurant to eat. It is not often that we get to indulge by letting someone else cook for us, bring us our food while we lounge, and then clean up afterwards. It occurs to me that I should change all of that “us” and “we” to simply “me,” as my husband generally has a staff cook, waitress, and cleaning slave who are all known by the name of Me. At any rate, he and I, a.k.a. Me, snookered Nana into entertaining the little munchkins for the day so that we could go on a date and have a whiff of what it was like to be single again.

I suppose I must explain the use of the world “single” in this context. I don’t mean that we wanted to experience life before we got hitched; it’s just that I have this awful propensity for referring to our pre-baby days as “do you remember when we were single and we could just hop in the car and go to a movie?” Some may think that a bit odd, but before we had children we were a “single couple”, if such a thing is possible in a grammatical sort of way. I don’t much care if it is or not- that’s just how it was.

Since we unfortunately don’t have the budget to blow forty dollars on a semi-gourmet lunch, we generally find ourselves at a local Olive Garden where we can spend $15.63, including tax and tip, and actually feel full when we leave the restaurant. If a person spends that amount at most eateries they usually still have a gnawing feeling somewhere in the region of the stomach that typically alludes to hunger, as they were only served sixteen crumbs in the shape of a sandwich and two ounces of water colored to resemble soup. The reason that a person can spend $15.63 at the Olive Garden and actually feel the need to throw up afterwards is that this bill procures for the spendee the right to as much soup, salad, and bread as they would like.

My husband hates ordering water when we go out to a restaurant to eat. He says it makes him feel like a cheapskate. It seems that he would much rather pay a ridiculous amount of money, like $2.19, for a tall glass of soda. (It must be said that he tends to drink no less than half-a-dozen glasses, so he does get his money’s worth). On this occasion, however, he settled for the free glass of water so as to be able to spend a couple dollars later in the day.

To a certain extent I can understand why he would feel that the healthier selection of water makes him appear too frugal. But the actions following the act of ordering his drink and making his soup selection are what I feel contradict his outlook on cheapskatedness and otherwise cause me to laugh and shake my head until I become rather dizzy.

To put it lightly, my husband is that person who, when seen entering an all-you-can-eat buffet, elicits cries of “Oh, no! Lock the doors! Bar the windows!” from the owner of the establishment for fear of being eaten into bankruptcy. The man feels bad about drinking a free beverage, but has no qualms about consuming so much salad, multiple (large) bowls of soup, and so many breadsticks that I lost count, that by the time he is sufficiently bloated and incapacitated he has whittled the price of each helping down to mere pennies. This I don’t understand.

He managed to keep a lid of the ensuing nausea, and I didn’t vomit at the thought of so much food being ingested in the matter of one hour. I just didn’t think about it. I was separated from my babies for a full eight hours, and have not found myself in need of therapy. My husband and I only got on each other’s nerves a handful of times. I didn’t have to wipe any rear ends or tell any one to stop jumping on the couch. Nobody went swimming in the cat’s water dish. Nor did anyone have to be punished for biting, pushing, yelling, grabbing, screaming, throwing food on the floor, or dropping toys down the stairs. I wouldn’t want to be that bored every day, but it’s nice to have a date every once in a while.