Wild and Crazy Saturday Night

Tonight, RD and I found ourselves dateless. Yes, yes, I know. It's hard to believe. However, never thwarted by a lack of a Saturday night date, RD and I decided to have some fun. And so we traveled to a college campus in a distant suburb. Yes, there we were -- two attractive, intelligent, funny gals in our [very] late twenties ready for adventure. Okay, so as RD has already disclosed said adventure was a reading being given by the author of our most recent bookclub book. But, I digress.

We drove onto campus and negotiated ourselves to the parking deck. We realized that we were almost completely sans cash. This is a bit embarassing as we are both professional women who do pretty well for ourselves. Thankfully, the nice people at the parking garage waved us through.

Once parked (okay so actually it took RD two times to successfully park the car, but as I too am a horrible parker, I cannot make fun of her), we had two missions. The first was to locate the theatre where our author would be giving her reading. The second mission was to locate an ATM so that we could remit payment to the parking staff. We accomplished the first mission with relative ease (despite very poor signage on the part of the sponsoring university). Locating the ATM, however, was a bit more complicated.

Now, in our defense, RD and I are quite intelligent. We both have post-graduate degrees from excellent schools. We are well read and well spoken. But, we are frequently challenged by tasks such as locating an ATM. This evening proved to be no exception. We located the student union where we were informed two ATMS were located. ATM #1 was being serviced. ATM #2 was for a credit bureau and would not accept our ATM cards. RD then observed an "Information Desk" in the distance. Perfect. We approached. There were two young men standing at computers behind the desk. We waited for them to assist. As we were waiting, one of them said, "No man, they are Russian chics." "Russian chics?" the other inquired. "They're like thirteen or something." One of the young men motioned for the other to look at his computer screen. We could see photos of women on said screen. Clearly they were discussing some sort of mail order bride website. Very helpful. It was then that I realized that these young men were not actually Information Desk employees. Rather, they were random students using the computers next to said desk. RD and I escaped quickly to find the real Information attendant who directed us to another building and ultimately, twenty minutes later, another ATM. (We will leave out the part where RD left her ATM card in the ATM and was chased down by a student who returned said card).

The reading wasn't great. But, hey, now we are "cool" and "cultured." This will impress all those intellectual types we are seeking to date. Now, it was time to eat.

RD has already alluded to the issue with the reservation. It became clear that our initial venue was no longer an option. En route to a nice, Italian place, we passed what can truly be categorized as a dive. RD said she'd been there before. Somehow, we found ourselves making illegal U-turns and parking in said dive's parking lot. You won't find this one in the little maroon book, readers. With the exception of an elderly couple with a little girl, we were the only patrons in said establishment. We amused ourselves with the juke box and selected tunes ranging from Britney to Johnny Cash. We ordered hot turkey sandwiches and mashed potatoes. We ate really bad pumpkin pie. Our "waiter" completely ignored us all night, despite the fact we were the only effing people there.

As we left the dive and went back out into the autumn night, I observed a sign over the counter that read,"Once you have ordered, please do not change seats." Um, is this such a persistant problem that they need a sign to discourage this practice? I haven't a clue. We also noted the dive is an historic landmark. Impressive.

So dear readers, you see we do not "need" to have men to have a good time. Sure, much of our conversation was dedicated to the men in our lives, or those who have been in our lives, or those we want to be in our lives. But, we also talked about books, our crazy families (mainly in the context of how they react to the men we date)...and, well...okay fine, so we talked a lot about boys. But, we also laughed a lot and ate food that will make exercise tomorrow obligatory. And that, dear readers, is the perfect Saturday evening.