‘Ew, go get a life!’ is my 15-year-old’s illuminating retort to anything from our commenting on her screentime to her screech time. Now, being a formula father and husband already leading an exemplary life, I ignored the kid. Till Amrika-returned friends advocated a ‘date night which saved their marriage.’ I scoffed at the idea that our marriage needed saving (the husband is the last to know) but the wife grasped at the idea with a zeal she usually reserves for the last gulab jamun .
Our extended family extended unsolicited opinions. ‘Date night? Why? You’re already married.’ My mother-in-law dismissed it. My aunt, whose career goal is to rearrange people’s plans, was more enthusiastic. ‘Why don’t you two stay home while we take your daughter out? Maybe that is why she is an only child?’
Undaunted by the Capulet-Montaguesque obstacles to true middle-aged love, we persisted. My wife spent an ill-afforded hour announcing that she had nothing to wear (she has three wardrobes full); then another hour covering every surface with post-its for every emergency foreseeable, laying food (for our daughter who lives on gum), cash (the only thing that finally disappeared), phone numbers of police, ambulance and pest control out on the table. My pleas to expedite our exit were met with withering looks (she does this more witheringly than I).
Restaurant romantic settings are unfairly ageist. The flowers set off my pollen allergy and our flickering candle rendered the tasteful menu impossible to read. My wife bent so close to it, she earned a singed eyebrow and a permanently disdainful look for weeks. After squinting, I ordered a pasta that turned out to be a pesto, and so I made satisfied grunts over a tiny bowl of pesto, while dreaming of our well-stocked fridge at home. She ordered two bottles of criminally expensive wine, and when I explained the rate of return on that money if invested wisely instead, she ordered a third.
Very mindful that being romantic was being expected of me, I requested the live band for a soulful song awash with claims of dreaming about her. I was starving by then and in what could be termed as cheating-on-date-night, kept dreaming instead of the fridge. She was in the restroom when they bellowed out the song. Waste! And I still had to tip them.
We clung to each other walking out, because one of her heels was wobbling (on her shoe — we’re not that old!) and I needed a crutch to avoid passing out from all that expensive wine on an empty stomach.
Satisfied that I’d saved our marriage, I settled on to the sofa with reheated food from our beloved fridge, and she turned on the latest news on the virus.
Our daughter popped out of her room, ‘Ew! Go get a life!’ Listening to my wife’s snores (I will deny I ever said this), I directed my finest withering look at the kid. ‘Don’t you see,’ my eyebrow said, ‘that we already have one?’
Where Jane De Suza, the author of ‘Happily Never After’, talks about the week’s quirks, quacks and hacks
