Whether To Leave The House Or Not

I can’t remember the last time we went out for dinner and a movie. It’s a big decision to get out of your comfy clothes and actually leave the house nowadays. But, “Hey,” I said on a recent rainy Saturday night, “let’s do it!”

The first sign that it was maybe not my best idea was when we somehow got the time wrong and showed up an hour early (stupid computer does that to us sometimes). We killed time walking around the grocery store next door. (On the upside, I found some plant-based eggs I’d like to try in the future.)

When we finally got into the theatre, the temperature was set to freezing. (Not just by my standards either. My brother later said, “I bring my winter coat when I go there.”) So, I schlepped all the way out to the car (he did offer) to get jackets that barely helped.

As the movie started, the house lights went up rather than down. Not a good sign. Ten minutes later it was obvious that no one else was making a move, so I made the trek to the concession stand to ask them to turn them off.

Two thirds into the movie when one of the main characters visibly aged, we looked at each other and said, “thank goodness it’s almost over.” (It was a much anticipated movie with one of our favorite actors, but it was not at all what we expected.)

Onto the next part of our adventure: pizza! We sat next to what appeared at first glance to be a family of four. Before long, we were convinced it was some type of “group home” outing, which is fine as long as there is someone responsible leading the group. There wasn’t. The guy we thought might be “in charge” said much too loudly, “Shut the F up and eat.” Only he didn’t say “F.” It was difficult to ignore this group as we were seated very close. When their food came, the woman opened (and I mean unscrewed the tops) of all of the spices on the table and poured them over her food. At one point, the cook actually came out of the kitchen and asked her, “Is that all oregano?”

Feeling like it was just a matter of time before something or someone imploded at that table we quickly ate our pizza and hightailed it out of there.

Once home, we immediately got into our comfy clothes and onto our comfy couch and put on Netflix.

Now, I don’t want to say the answer to the age old “whether to leave the house” question is a definitive no, but, maybe for a while it will be. And in the future, we’ll definitely be a lot more careful with the planning.

Postscript: I will say that the pizza was really good, and there’s no better way to have it than piping hot right out of the oven even when you have one eye on a guy who is palming a piece of pizza as he chews the cheese off the top.