Mini-Van, Table for Four

Tempting? Absolutely! Possible? Not absolutely.

A Friday-night invitation to have dinner, drinks, laughs, and assorted merriment was extended this evening to The Sprague’s. For a moment we exerted our brains as best we could to devise some “Mission Impossible”-type scenario that would somehow lead us to the promised land of adult fun. Could we take the kids? Strike one. Is there anyone we know who we could call at the very-last minute to come over and take care of two kids with various attachment/intestinal situations? Strike two. What if we went and left them in the van with the A/C running and the doors locked, in the way, way back so no one could see them through the tinted windows? Foul tip, still alive. Everyone is leaving in 15 minutes and we just started a feed. Ohhhh, a smoking fastball down the middle for a called third strike!

OK, so it wasn’t to be, and we pretty much knew that. This is what we signed up for and we’re cool with that. It’s not easy, but it’s all worth it. Besides…we’re gonna make our own fun tonight.  Again, it is important to point out that the rest of this entry is not really a complaint, more than an honest look at how things go when you got a double-dose under a year old.

The issue remained: just what the hell were we doing for dinner? This is a common question, and the answer is seemingly impossible to ever answer. Meal preparation is for people who have time to, well, prepare meals. We’re learning daily that parenting twins is a lesson in reaction. The only things you can really prepare for are feeds…theirs, not yours.  

How does a soy sauce and ketchup sandwich sound?

Other than Kosher pickles, pretzel rods, old hummus, and Sour Apple Jelly Bellies, there wasn’t much that could be described as dinner. Our food situation is starting to resemble my college years, when we never actually had food, we just had a lot of stuff you can put on food.  We could order in, but our tolerance for pizza is near the tipping-point.

So we’re going out to eat! But again, can we take these twitchy, explosive creatures into public? If they behave, will the restaurant’s chaos of stimulation morph them into a weekend-at-Charlie Sheen’s sleeping pattern? Not-winning.

So Jess suggests we hit the drive-thru and eat in the parking lot. I know what you’re thinking: “Sounds sexy.” Well, ha-ha, dumb reader…you can take your condescending sarcasm and shove it! This sounded frigging amazing! We’re getting out of the house. We’re not gonna have to lug them out of the car, set them up at a table, then leave mid-double cheeseburger. If we need to leave, we’ll just throw this bitch in reverse and trot!

So down Route 9 we cruise…next stop Wendy’s. We pull up, order our food and in a voice that sounded eerily similar to English, we’re told to pull around. We get our food, check for straws---holy shit they remembered---and looked for a good spot. Problem is, there was one spot after the drive-thru and wheeling around one more time in the parking lot was going to be a task (won’t go into explaining why…it’s just an effed-up parking lot…this is going on long enough without getting into that. So instead I’ll waste a few lines in parentheses).

So now, we’re really making this a night out. We’re gonna eat the food in another parking lot! I suggested we have a little fun and dine at the Feng Shui parking lot. It’s this new, hip Japanese steakhouse. That’s kind of exotic and romantic. It wold also be fun to yell at young, pretty couples embarking on an exciting evening. “Hey kids….use protection or this could be you next May!” Jess was driving and my great idea was vetoed before the bill was put to a vote.

For gifts you pray you never get, Building 19....

 We drive about a half-mile and pull into Building 19. For those of you in the Boston area, you know that we’re gonna get some special people-watching to go with this exquisitely-prepared feast. To those who don’t know what Building 19 is, it’s a chain of stores that finds crap no one else wants and sells said crap at discount prices. It’s basically a flea market franchise…only they own all the fleas. Think of it this way: Imagine a truckload of Budweiser “Whaaaaassssup?” T-shirts fell off a truck back in 1999, and landed under an overpass. Those shirts sat in the elements for 11 years and were discovered. Instead of giving them away or throwing them away you wanted to find a way to make money off them. You would sell them to Building 19. 

We pull up right next to a car that is filled with crap from the floorboards to the roof. This is clearly a Building 19 VIP. From the get-go, this decision was a bona fide winner! No five-year waiting period, straight to the Hall of Fame! Either this person is a hoarder, or their license plate is also serving as their address. As we scarf down our meal, we see various so-called humans bounce in and out of the store with bags full of insanely-discounted rummage sale rejects that probably need a good boiling before heading to the trash can. Seriously, it was like dinner and a light comedy. By God…it was a date night!! Livin’ large in the burbs! Unfortunately, about half-way through our “movie”, Logan started warming up for a good cry and that was our cue to fire the trusty Sienna up and head back to the home front. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

It wasn’t steak and wine, nor was it tapas and salsa dancing. But it was dinner and entertainment that didn’t involve the same stale air of our apartment. It was a fun idea that turned into more than we imagined.  And it cost $14.94, or only two dollars more than that box of Budweiser shirts at Building 19. What time do they close?