Go over and say hi to Sassy. You will laugh. Trust me on this.

Did I mention that we went out on a date last weekend?  No?  Well let me tell you all about it. I know you’re dying to hear!  It was kind of a post-valentine’s day date in which we actually paid a babysitter and left the house.  I have two points of interest gleaned from our night on the town to share:

1) The Drunk: We ate dinner at a local restaurant which was busy enough.  We had to wait for half an hour before we were seated which was ok because we weren’t in a hurry.  While we were waiting I noticed a man in a wheelchair seated at a table in the restaurant. I didn’t spend much time contemplating said diner as I had many more important things to focus on. (Like why every single woman between age twelve and thirty who walked in the door was wearing Uggs and skinny jeans.  Listen, I’m no rock star.  But I was ready to start giving out fashion advice because skinny jeans? They’re called skinny for a reason, people! Also, those really short Uggs look good on no one. Except people with exceptionally long legs.  Short Uggs + skinny jeans = not cool.)

When we were seated we ended up sitting at a table right next to Old Wheelchair Guy.  When we first sat down he was alone at a cleared table, slumped over with his eyes closed.  At first I thought it was comical that he was falling asleep at a table. But as we continued our dining experience we became increasingly uncomfortable as the gentleman consumed pint after pint of beer and other alcoholic beverages, only managing to stay conscious for thirty second intervals between sips.  He was sitting at a table intended for six to eight people. Alone.  At 8:00pm on a Saturday night. In a busy restaurant.  Wasted.

It’s hard to enjoy your meal when there’s a drunk at the next table, albeit a quiet one.  We were unsure what the situation was. Perhaps he had been there with dining companions who left? I hadn’t noticed if he was alone while we were waiting. Maybe they seated him in the restaurant instead of at the bar because of his handicap? Maybe he was tipping reeeally well?

What do you think? Was it right for the restaurant to allow this man, clearly very intoxicated, to continue to drink himself into a stupor in front of their other diners which included children (it’s a family restaurant)?  We were not the only ones who were uncomfortable.  There were many uncomfortable glances in his direction. Some looked concerned. Others looked disapproving.  Would it have been wrong for the servers to gently recommend the man call a taxi?

I don’t know what the story was.  By the end of our hour and a half at our table we were composing postcards to send to PostSecret on behalf of our friend, the drunk.  “I spent four hours in a busy restaurant taking up a large table because I knew they would never ask me to leave because I was sitting in a wheelchair.” “I go to busy restaurants alone to watch the happy families.  I always leave drunk.”  “I pretended to be drunk so I could look down the waitress’ shirt when she bent over to talk to me.” Honestly, I didn’t know what to make of the situation. I was a little disturbed by it. But we didn’t know what to do. And it was our first date since Christmas.  I just wanted to spend some time complaining about how stressed out I feel actually talking to my husband.

2) The Movie: If you ever have reason to go to a movie with my husband do NOT, for the love of everything holy, see anything involving computer/software dialogue of any kind. Actually, if you’re going to a movie with my husband I want to know why I’m not invited.  We never get out and now he’s going to movies with YOU?  Er…sorry.  Feeling a bit sensitive these days.

We went to see Untraceable which was basically just a slightly more gory episode of Criminal Minds and not really that great. But there are a few scenes in which the characters start talking all Techy. If you are like me (and, I think, the majority of the population of North America) you hear “Blah blah memory card blah blah blah-blah bites blah blah backup blah server blah blah blah.”

If you are my husband and you actually understand what is being said, you may actually discover that what the characters are saying is, in fact, nonsense.  In fact, they might as well go ahead and say “Blah blah supercomputer blah blah password blah blah-blah hacked”.  The rest of us continue on in blissful ignorance while the Man next to me will be huffing and sighing and rolling his eyes. Every time I looked over at him during these scenes he just shook his head sadly at the state of script-writing in the world today.  From now on we need to restrict our movie viewing to stories set in the distant future or historical films where we are unaware of the accuracy of the details.